The Million Dollar Homepage
Encyclopedia
The Million Dollar Homepage is a website
conceived in 2005 by Alex Tew, a student from Wiltshire
, England, to raise money for his university education. The home page consists of a million
pixel
s arranged in a pixel grid; the image-based links on it were sold for $
1 per pixel in blocks. The purchasers of these pixel blocks provided tiny images to be displayed on them, a URL
to which the images were linked, and a slogan to be displayed when hovering a cursor
over the link. The aim of the website was to sell all of the pixels in the image, thus generating a million dollars of income for the creator. The Wall Street Journal
has commented that the site inspired other websites that sell pixels.
Launched on 26 August 2005, the website became an Internet phenomenon. The Alexa
ranking of web traffic
peaked at around 127; , it is 35,983. On 1 January 2006, the final 1,000 pixels were put up for auction on eBay
. The auction closed on 11 January with a winning bid of $38,100 that brought the final tally to $1,037,100 in gross income.His website was also featured in the book "Cool Tech Gadgets, Games, Robots, and the Digital World".
During the January 2006 auction, the website was subject to a distributed denial-of-service attack and ransom demand, which left it inaccessible to visitors for a week while its security system was upgraded. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
and Wiltshire Constabulary
investigated the attack and extortion attempt.
in Wiltshire, England, conceived The Million Dollar Homepage in August 2005 when he was 21 years old. He was about to begin a three-year Business Management course at the University of Nottingham
, and was concerned that he would be left with a student loan
that could take years to repay. As a money-raising idea, Tew decided to sell a million pixels on a website for $
1 each; purchasers would add their own image, logo
or advertisement, and have the option of including a hyperlink
to their website. Pixels were sold for US dollars rather than UK pounds
; the US has a larger online population than the UK, and Tew believed more people would relate to the concept if the pixels were sold in US currency. In 2005, the pound was strong
against the dollar: £1 was worth approximately $1.80, and that cost per pixel may have been too expensive for many potential buyers. Tew's setup costs were €
50, which paid for the registration of the domain name and a basic web-hosting package. The website went live on 26 August 2005.
The homepage
featured a Web banner
with the site's name and a pixel counter displaying the number of pixels sold, a navigation bar
containing nine small links to the site's internal web page
s, and an empty square grid of 1,000,000 pixels divided into 10,000 100-pixel blocks. Tew promised customers that the site would remain online for at least five years – that is, until at least 26 August 2010.
. The technology news website The Register
featured two articles on The Million Dollar Homepage in September. By the end of the month, The Million Dollar Homepage had received $250,000 and was ranked Number 3 on Alexa Internet
's list of "Movers and Shakers" behind the websites for Britney Spears
and Photo District News
. On 6 October, Tew reported the site received 65,000 unique visitors; it received 1465 Digg
s, becoming one of the most Dugg links that week. Eleven days later, the number had increased to 100,000 unique visitors. On 26 October, two months after the Million Dollar Homepage was launched, more than 500,900 pixels had been sold to 1,400 customers. By New Year's Eve, Tew reported that the site was receiving hits from 25,000 unique visitors every hour and had an Alexa
Rank of 127, and that 999,000 of the 1,000,000 pixels had been sold.
On 1 January 2006, Tew announced that because the demand was so great for the last 1,000 pixels, "the most fair and logical thing" to do was auction them on eBay
rather than lose "the integrity and degree of exclusivity intrinsic to the million-pixel concept" by launching a second Million Dollar Homepage. The auction lasted ten days and received 99 legitimate bids. Although bids were received for amounts as high as $160,109.99, many were either retracted by the bidders or cancelled as hoaxes. "I actually contacted the people by phone and turns out they weren't serious, which is fairly frustrating, so I removed those bidders at the last minute", said Tew. The winning bid was $38,100, placed by MillionDollarWeightLoss.com, an online store selling diet-related products. Tew remarked that he had expected the final bid amount to be higher due to the media attention. The Million Dollar Homepage made a gross
total of $1,037,100 in five months. After costs, taxes and a donation to The Prince's Trust
, a charity for young people, Tew expected his net
income to be $650,000–$700,000.
Pixel purchasers included Bonanza Gift Shop
, Panda Software
, the producers of Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
, British Schools Karting Championship
, Book of Cool
, Orange
, The Times
, Cheapflights.com, Schiffer Publishing
, Rhapsody
, Tenacious D
, GoldenPalace.com
, 888.com and other online casino
s, Independiente Records
, Yahoo!
, small privately owned businesses, and companies offering get-rich-quick schemes, online dating service
s, personal loans, free sample
s, website designs and holidays.
, The Daily Telegraph
, and PC Pro
. Tew also appeared on the national breakfast television
programmes Sky News Sunrise and BBC Breakfast
to discuss the website.
By November the website was becoming popular around the world, receiving attention from Financial Times Deutschland
in Germany, TVNZ
in New Zealand, Terra Networks in Latin America, the China Daily
, and especially in the United States where it was covered in Adweek
, Florida Today
, and Wall Street Journal. Tew hired a US-based publicist to help with the attention from the American media and made a week-long trip to the US, where he was interviewed on ABC News Radio
, the Fox News Channel
, Attack of the Show!
, and local news programmes.
The concept was described as "simple and brilliant", "clever", "ingenious", and "a unique platform [for advertising] which is also a bit of fun". Professor Martin Binks, director of the Nottingham University Institute for Entrepreneurial Innovation, said, "It is brilliant in its simplicity ... advertisers have been attracted to it by its novelty ... the site has become a phenomenon." Popular Mechanics
said, "There's no content. No cool graphics, giveaways or steamy Paris Hilton videos for viewers to salivate over. Imagine a TV channel that shows nothing but commercials, a magazine with nothing but ads. That's The Million Dollar Homepage. An astonishing example of the power of viral marketing
". Don Oldenburg of the Washington Post was one of the few without praise for the site, calling it a "cheap, mind-bogglingly lucrative marketing monstrosity, an advertising badlands of spam, banner ads and pop-ups." Oldenburg continues, "it looks like a bulletin board on designer steroids, an advertising train wreck you can't not look at. It's like getting every pop-up ad you ever got in your life, at once. It's the Internet equivalent of suddenly feeling like you want to take a shower."
As the final pixels were being auctioned, Tew was interviewed on Richard & Judy
, and profiled in the online BBC News Magazine. The Wall Street Journal wrote about The Million Dollar Homepage and its impact on the Internet community. "Mr. Tew himself has taken on celebrity status in the Internet community ... the creative juice ... paints an interesting picture of online entrepreneurship".
Tew dropped out of the business degree the site was set up to fund after one term. In 2008, Tew founded Popjam, an Internet aggregation and social networking business.
. "I haven't replied to any of them as I don't want to give them the satisfaction and I certainly don't intend to pay them any money. What is happening to my website is like terrorism. If you pay them, new attacks will start," Tew said.
The website was inaccessible to visitors for a week until the host server upgraded the security system, and filtered traffic through anti-DDoS software. Wiltshire Constabulary
's Hi-Tech Crime Unit and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
were called to investigate the extortion and attack; they believed it originated in Russia.
Nonprofit organisation The Pixel Projects director Regina Yau cited The Million Dollar Homepage as a model for their own site. The Pixel Projects site is a global awareness and fund raising organisation led by volunteers working to end violence against women
.
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
conceived in 2005 by Alex Tew, a student from Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
, England, to raise money for his university education. The home page consists of a million
Million
One million or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian millione , from mille, "thousand", plus the augmentative suffix -one.In scientific notation, it is written as or just 106...
pixel
Pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....
s arranged in a pixel grid; the image-based links on it were sold for $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
1 per pixel in blocks. The purchasers of these pixel blocks provided tiny images to be displayed on them, a URL
Uniform Resource Locator
In computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....
to which the images were linked, and a slogan to be displayed when hovering a cursor
Cursor (computers)
In computing, a cursor is an indicator used to show the position on a computer monitor or other display device that will respond to input from a text input or pointing device. The flashing text cursor may be referred to as a caret in some cases...
over the link. The aim of the website was to sell all of the pixels in the image, thus generating a million dollars of income for the creator. The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
has commented that the site inspired other websites that sell pixels.
Launched on 26 August 2005, the website became an Internet phenomenon. The Alexa
Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...
ranking of web traffic
Web traffic
Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. It is a large portion of Internet traffic. This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit...
peaked at around 127; , it is 35,983. On 1 January 2006, the final 1,000 pixels were put up for auction on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
. The auction closed on 11 January with a winning bid of $38,100 that brought the final tally to $1,037,100 in gross income.His website was also featured in the book "Cool Tech Gadgets, Games, Robots, and the Digital World".
During the January 2006 auction, the website was subject to a distributed denial-of-service attack and ransom demand, which left it inaccessible to visitors for a week while its security system was upgraded. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
and Wiltshire Constabulary
Wiltshire Constabulary
Wiltshire Police, formerly known as the Wiltshire Constabulary, is the territorial police force responsible for policing Wiltshire and Swindon in the south-west of England.-History:...
investigated the attack and extortion attempt.
Development
Alex Tew, a student from CrickladeCricklade
Cricklade is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in north Wiltshire in England, midway between Swindon and Cirencester.On 25 September 2011 Cricklade was awarded The Royal Horticultural Society's 'Champion of Champions' award in the Britain in Bloom competition.Cricklade is twinned with...
in Wiltshire, England, conceived The Million Dollar Homepage in August 2005 when he was 21 years old. He was about to begin a three-year Business Management course at the University of Nottingham
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...
, and was concerned that he would be left with a student loan
Student loans in the United Kingdom
Student loans and grants in the United Kingdom are primarily provided by the government through the Student Loans Company , a non-departmental public body. It has been the subject of much discussion whether or not the SLC is a bank, however these claims are entirely unfounded and The Student Loans...
that could take years to repay. As a money-raising idea, Tew decided to sell a million pixels on a website for $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
1 each; purchasers would add their own image, logo
Logo
A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...
or advertisement, and have the option of including a hyperlink
Hyperlink
In computing, a hyperlink is a reference to data that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks...
to their website. Pixels were sold for US dollars rather than UK pounds
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
; the US has a larger online population than the UK, and Tew believed more people would relate to the concept if the pixels were sold in US currency. In 2005, the pound was strong
Hard currency
Hard currency , in economics, refers to a globally traded currency that is expected to serve as a reliable and stable store of value...
against the dollar: £1 was worth approximately $1.80, and that cost per pixel may have been too expensive for many potential buyers. Tew's setup costs were €
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
50, which paid for the registration of the domain name and a basic web-hosting package. The website went live on 26 August 2005.
The homepage
Homepage
A home page or homepage has various related meanings to do with web sites:* It most often refers to the initial or main web page of a web site, sometimes called the front page ....
featured a Web banner
Web banner
A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web delivered by an ad server. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser...
with the site's name and a pixel counter displaying the number of pixels sold, a navigation bar
Navigation bar
A navigation bar is a sub region of a web page that contains hypertext links in order to navigate between the pages of a website....
containing nine small links to the site's internal web page
Web page
A web page or webpage is a document or information resource that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser and displayed on a monitor or mobile device. This information is usually in HTML or XHTML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext...
s, and an empty square grid of 1,000,000 pixels divided into 10,000 100-pixel blocks. Tew promised customers that the site would remain online for at least five years – that is, until at least 26 August 2010.
Pixel sales
Because individual pixels are too small to be seen easily, Pixels were sold in 100-pixel "blocks" measuring pixels; the minimum price was thus $100. The first sale, three days after the site began operating, was to an online music website operated by a friend of Tew's. He bought 400 pixels in a block. After two weeks, Tew's friends and family members had purchased a total of 4,700 pixels. The site was initially marketed only through word of mouth; however, after the site had made $1,000, a press release was sent out that was picked up by the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. The technology news website The Register
The Register
The Register is a British technology news and opinion website. It was founded by John Lettice, Mike Magee and Ross Alderson in 1994 as a newsletter called "Chip Connection", initially as an email service...
featured two articles on The Million Dollar Homepage in September. By the end of the month, The Million Dollar Homepage had received $250,000 and was ranked Number 3 on Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...
's list of "Movers and Shakers" behind the websites for Britney Spears
Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...
and Photo District News
Photo District News
Photo District News is an American monthly trade publication for professional photographers. PDN was first published in 1980. The publication takes its name from New York City's photo district, an area of photo businesses that was once located in Flatiron District.Originally named New York Photo...
. On 6 October, Tew reported the site received 65,000 unique visitors; it received 1465 Digg
Digg
Digg is a social news website. Prior to Digg v4, its cornerstone function consisted of letting people vote stories up or down, called digging and burying, respectively. Digg's popularity prompted the creation of copycat social networking sites with story submission and voting systems...
s, becoming one of the most Dugg links that week. Eleven days later, the number had increased to 100,000 unique visitors. On 26 October, two months after the Million Dollar Homepage was launched, more than 500,900 pixels had been sold to 1,400 customers. By New Year's Eve, Tew reported that the site was receiving hits from 25,000 unique visitors every hour and had an Alexa
Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...
Rank of 127, and that 999,000 of the 1,000,000 pixels had been sold.
On 1 January 2006, Tew announced that because the demand was so great for the last 1,000 pixels, "the most fair and logical thing" to do was auction them on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
rather than lose "the integrity and degree of exclusivity intrinsic to the million-pixel concept" by launching a second Million Dollar Homepage. The auction lasted ten days and received 99 legitimate bids. Although bids were received for amounts as high as $160,109.99, many were either retracted by the bidders or cancelled as hoaxes. "I actually contacted the people by phone and turns out they weren't serious, which is fairly frustrating, so I removed those bidders at the last minute", said Tew. The winning bid was $38,100, placed by MillionDollarWeightLoss.com, an online store selling diet-related products. Tew remarked that he had expected the final bid amount to be higher due to the media attention. The Million Dollar Homepage made a gross
Gross (economics)
In economics, gross means before deductions. The antonym is net, meaning after deductions.-Usage:In this sense, it may appear an adjective, following the noun it modifies, e.g., "earned two million dollars, gross"...
total of $1,037,100 in five months. After costs, taxes and a donation to The Prince's Trust
The Prince's Trust
The Prince's Trust is a charity in the United Kingdom founded in 1976 by Charles, Prince of Wales to help young people. They run a range of training programmes, provide mentoring support and offer financial grants to build the confidence and motivation of disadvantaged young people...
, a charity for young people, Tew expected his net
Net (economics)
In economics, net means after deductions. A related concept is gross, meaning before deductions.Nett is an alternative spelling used in British English.-Usage:...
income to be $650,000–$700,000.
Pixel purchasers included Bonanza Gift Shop
Bonanza Gift Shop
Bonanza Gift Shop is a landmark located on the Las Vegas Strip between the Sahara Hotel and Casino and the Stratosphere Las Vegas. It is billed as the World's Largest Gift Shop with over of shopping space....
, Panda Software
Panda Software
Panda Security SL, formerly Panda Software, is a computer security company founded in 1990 by Panda's former CEO, Mikel Urizarbarrena, in the city of Bilbao, Spain...
, the producers of Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price is a 2005 documentary film by director Robert Greenwald. The film presents an unfavorable picture of Wal-Mart's business practices through interviews with former employees, small business owners, and footage of Wal-Mart executives...
, British Schools Karting Championship
British Schools Karting Championship
The British Schools Karting Championship was set up in late 2003 as a means to promote karting to teenage school children in the UK. The main principle of the championship is to enable as many young people as possible to enjoy karting without having to spend thousands of pounds buying and...
, Book of Cool
Book of Cool
Book of Cool is an award-winning global entertainment format created and owned by London, United Kingdom based producers Ocelot Productions. The main purpose is to publicly provide certain captured film footage of the world’s "coolest" exponents of sports and skills in action, as well as divulging...
, Orange
Orange United Kingdom
Orange is a mobile network operator and internet service provider in the United Kingdom, which launched in 1994. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but was purchased by France Télécom in 2000, which then adopted the Orange brand for all its other mobile communications activities...
, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, Cheapflights.com, Schiffer Publishing
Schiffer Publishing
Schiffer Publishing Ltd. is a publisher based out of the "Schiffer Book Farm" in Atglen, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles east of Lancaster. It specializes in books about antiques, architecture and design, arts and crafts, collectibles, lifestyle, military and aviation history.-External links:***...
, Rhapsody
Rhapsody (online music service)
Rhapsody is an online music store subscription service, launched in December 2001, and available in the United States only. On April 6, 2010, Rhapsody officially declared its independence from RealNetworks. Downloaded files come with restrictions on their use, enforced by Helix, Rhapsody's version...
, Tenacious D
Tenacious D
Tenacious D is an American rock band that was formed in Los Angeles, California in 1994. Composed of lead vocalist and guitarist Jack Black and lead guitarist and vocalist Kyle Gass, the band has released two albums – Tenacious D and The Pick of Destiny...
, GoldenPalace.com
GoldenPalace.com
GoldenPalace.com is an online casino, hosted at Mohawk Internet Technologies, which is located in the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory near Montreal. They are well-known for their publicity stunts. They are also known for large 'bonuses' which must be waged a comparatively excessive fifty times before...
, 888.com and other online casino
Online casino
Online casinos, also known as virtual casinos or Internet casinos, are online versions of traditional casinos. Online casinos enable gamblers to play and wager on casino games through the Internet....
s, Independiente Records
Independiente Records
Independiente is a record label formed in 1997 after Andy MacDonald sold Go! Discs Records to PolyGram in 1996 for a reported £30 million. In the UK, the label is distributed Vital PIAS....
, Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
, small privately owned businesses, and companies offering get-rich-quick schemes, online dating service
Online dating service
Online dating or Internet dating is a dating system which allows individuals, couples and groups to make contact and communicate with each other over the Internet, usually with the objective of developing a personal, romantic, or sexual relationship...
s, personal loans, free sample
Free sample
A product sample is a sample of a consumer product that is given to the consumer so that he or she may try a product before committing to a purchase.-Free samples:...
s, website designs and holidays.
Media attention
Following the September press release that first brought attention to the site, The Million Dollar Homepage was featured in articles on BBC Online, The RegisterThe Register
The Register is a British technology news and opinion website. It was founded by John Lettice, Mike Magee and Ross Alderson in 1994 as a newsletter called "Chip Connection", initially as an email service...
, The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, and PC Pro
PC Pro
PC Pro is one of several computer magazines published monthly in the United Kingdom by Dennis Publishing. PC Pro also licenses individual articles for republication in various countries around the world - and some articles are translated into local languages...
. Tew also appeared on the national breakfast television
Breakfast television
Breakfast television or morning show , is a type of infotainment television program, broadcast live in the morning...
programmes Sky News Sunrise and BBC Breakfast
BBC Breakfast
BBC Breakfast is the morning television news programme simulcast on BBC One and the BBC News channel. It is presented live from BBC Television Centre in White City, West London, and contains a mixture of news, sport, weather, business and feature items...
to discuss the website.
By November the website was becoming popular around the world, receiving attention from Financial Times Deutschland
Financial Times Deutschland
The Financial Times Deutschland is a German language financial newspaper based in Hamburg, Germany, and is published by Gruner + Jahr. The newspaper contains four sections: Business, Politics & Economy, Finance, and Agenda .Founded in February 2000, the circulation grew to 103,000 readers in the...
in Germany, TVNZ
Television New Zealand
Television New Zealand, more commonly referred to, and stylized as TVNZ, is a government-owned corporation television network broadcasting in New Zealand and parts of the Pacific. It operates TV1, TV2, TVNZ7, TVNZ Heartland, TVNZ U and new media services....
in New Zealand, Terra Networks in Latin America, the China Daily
China Daily
The China Daily is an English language daily newspaper published in the People's Republic of China.- Overview :China Daily was established in June 1981 and has the widest print circulation of any English-language newspaper in the country...
, and especially in the United States where it was covered in Adweek
Adweek
Adweek is a weekly American advertising trade publication that was first published in 1978....
, Florida Today
Florida Today
Florida Today is the major daily newspaper serving Brevard County. The Gannett corporation bought the paper in 1966.In addition to its regular daily publication, Florida Today publishes four weekly and eight biweekly community newspapers which are tailored for distinct neighborhoods within Brevard...
, and Wall Street Journal. Tew hired a US-based publicist to help with the attention from the American media and made a week-long trip to the US, where he was interviewed on ABC News Radio
ABC News Radio
ABC News Radio is the radio service of ABC News, a division of the ABC Television Network. Formerly known as ABC Radio News, ABC News Radio feeds, through Cumulus Media Networks, newscasts on the hour to its more than 2,000 affiliates...
, the Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
, Attack of the Show!
Attack of the Show!
Attack of the Show! is an American live television program shown weeknights on G4, G4 Canada and Fuel TV in Australia. The program is hosted by Kevin Pereira and Candace Bailey...
, and local news programmes.
The concept was described as "simple and brilliant", "clever", "ingenious", and "a unique platform [for advertising] which is also a bit of fun". Professor Martin Binks, director of the Nottingham University Institute for Entrepreneurial Innovation, said, "It is brilliant in its simplicity ... advertisers have been attracted to it by its novelty ... the site has become a phenomenon." Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics is an American magazine first published January 11, 1902 by H. H. Windsor, and has been owned since 1958 by the Hearst Corporation...
said, "There's no content. No cool graphics, giveaways or steamy Paris Hilton videos for viewers to salivate over. Imagine a TV channel that shows nothing but commercials, a magazine with nothing but ads. That's The Million Dollar Homepage. An astonishing example of the power of viral marketing
Viral marketing
Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses...
". Don Oldenburg of the Washington Post was one of the few without praise for the site, calling it a "cheap, mind-bogglingly lucrative marketing monstrosity, an advertising badlands of spam, banner ads and pop-ups." Oldenburg continues, "it looks like a bulletin board on designer steroids, an advertising train wreck you can't not look at. It's like getting every pop-up ad you ever got in your life, at once. It's the Internet equivalent of suddenly feeling like you want to take a shower."
As the final pixels were being auctioned, Tew was interviewed on Richard & Judy
Richard & Judy
Richard & Judy was a British magazine/chat show which was presented by married couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan. It originally aired on Channel 4 from 2001 to 2008 but later moved to digital channel Watch in October 2008. It featured the world's most famous stars, along with their Book Club...
, and profiled in the online BBC News Magazine. The Wall Street Journal wrote about The Million Dollar Homepage and its impact on the Internet community. "Mr. Tew himself has taken on celebrity status in the Internet community ... the creative juice ... paints an interesting picture of online entrepreneurship".
Tew dropped out of the business degree the site was set up to fund after one term. In 2008, Tew founded Popjam, an Internet aggregation and social networking business.
DDoS attack
On 7 January 2006, three days before the auction of the final 1,000 pixels was due to end, Tew received an e-mail from an organization called "The Dark Group", and was told The Million Dollar Homepage would become the victim of a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) if a ransom of $5,000 was not paid by 10 January. Believing the threat to be a hoax, he ignored it, but a week later received a second e-mail threat: "Hello u website is under us atack to stop the DDoS send us 50000$." Again, he ignored the threat, and the website was flooded with extra traffic and e-mails, causing it to crashCrash (computing)
A crash in computing is a condition where a computer or a program, either an application or part of the operating system, ceases to function properly, often exiting after encountering errors. Often the offending program may appear to freeze or hang until a crash reporting service documents...
. "I haven't replied to any of them as I don't want to give them the satisfaction and I certainly don't intend to pay them any money. What is happening to my website is like terrorism. If you pay them, new attacks will start," Tew said.
The website was inaccessible to visitors for a week until the host server upgraded the security system, and filtered traffic through anti-DDoS software. Wiltshire Constabulary
Wiltshire Constabulary
Wiltshire Police, formerly known as the Wiltshire Constabulary, is the territorial police force responsible for policing Wiltshire and Swindon in the south-west of England.-History:...
's Hi-Tech Crime Unit and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
were called to investigate the extortion and attack; they believed it originated in Russia.
Similar websites
Many other sites sell advertising by pixels. Tew said of the sites, "[they] popped up almost immediately; now there are hundreds of Web sites selling pixels. The copycats are all competing with each other."...they have very little ads, therefore I guess it’s not going too well for them. The idea only works once and relies on novelty ... any copy-cat sites will only have pure comedy value, whereas mine possibly has a bit of comedy PLUS some actual pull in advertising dollars ... so I say good luck to the imitators! I realize it was not an original idea, but I am the only one who was lucky enough to make money from the idea."Nonprofit organisation The Pixel Projects director Regina Yau cited The Million Dollar Homepage as a model for their own site. The Pixel Projects site is a global awareness and fund raising organisation led by volunteers working to end violence against women
Violence against women
Violence against women is a technical term used to collectively refer to violent acts that are primarily or exclusively committed against women...
.