The Dollar Factory

Alex Tew’s Pixelotto: A brilliant or just plain stupid idea?

There are several rumors circulating around the blogosphere that Alex Tew, the creator of the very famous million dollar homepage, is about to launch another pixel advertising site with a twist. In just a few days on December 5^th, Alex will launch Pixelotto, a pixel advertising page with a cost of $2 per pixel. Alex wants to sell once again 1 million pixels for a total income of $2 million. Except this time, he plans to keep only half of that for himself and give the other half, i.e., $1 million, to a lucky winner selected by a lottery. The details of the lottery to be had are not yet known.

Is Pixelotto a brilliant or just plain stupid idea? Honestly, only time will tell. The truth is that it is hard to monetize a pixel advertising site after the original million dollar homepage. There are many people who have tried to do the same thing and never sold more than a few pixels. I wrote before about the original million dollar homepage and why it worked. The originality factor is now lost so it might be hard for Alex to sell one million pixels. Then again, what you really need to make your pixel site work is lots of publicity. Once people flock to your site, advertisers will follow to buy the traffic. It is highly untargeted traffic which makes me question the logic behind buying any of it but who said that advertisers are rational people?

So, how is Alex going to generate lots of publicity for a second time since the originality factor is lost and chances are that the popular media will ignore him? Well, it would appear that he has gone viral and in fact it is already working. Pixelotto is already being talked about in several blogs including Techcruch. It won’t be long before Pixelotto is on the front page of Digg and other similar social news sites. Once, he gains fame online –and he is already half way there- it won’t be long before he is featured on traditional media once again. And when that happens, advertisers will follow in droves. Moreover, there are rumors that he has already pre-sold %25 of the available pixels probably to the same people who bought pixels on the million dollar homepage. These advertisers are buying into this early so they can benefit from the initial surge in traffic.

Finally, Alex will not give away the $1 million until all pixels have been sold. In other words, even if he never sells all the pixels, he can still make a sizeable profit from Pixelotto. And he won’t have to pay a single penny for advertising.

So, is it a brilliant or plain stupid idea?

Update: As one of the readers pointed out to me, according to the site’s FAQ, Alex will give away half of the money generated with Pixelotto after 12 months even if not all of the pixels are sold. Pixelotto is now online and you should read the “How it works” and FAQ sections.

PS: Here is a screenshot of what Pixelotto looks like courtesy of some dude on Flickr.