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Creator of the Million Dollar Home Page launches Pixelotto.com Alex Tew Back For Round 2
or You'd think they'd have learned in 1776)
Creator of the Million Dollar Home Page launches Pixelotto.com
Lo and behold, pixel advertising has begun a resurgence, and not surprisingly, thanks to the formerly destitute and now noveau riche young British man who started it all. Alex Tew and his pixels are back, but this time with a whole new pixilated spin.
TheMillionDollarHomePage.com is shooting back up the Alexa traffic rankings, but this time, because of his new site, Pixelotto.com. Tew is not only offering ad space for those looking to gain visitors, he is upping the ante in this game of "click" poker by planning to give away one million dollars to some lucky average visitor to his site in return for clicking on ads. When his grid of a million pixels is filled up this time, Tew will select one ad at random. He will delve into his database of users who have clicked on this one advertisement, and a winner will be selected in a random drawing. Along with the million dollars, the winner will get to select a charity that Tew will donate an additional $100,000 of his proceeds to. (As Tew would undoubtedly agree, it's nice to be rich) Having obviously obtained a better education in business than he originally sought to pay for, this time around he has doubled the per pixel cost to an eye-popping price of $2 and states in conspicuous terms in the site's sub pages that the ad has a maximum lifespan of only thirteen months. These spots on Pixelotto.com are guaranteed to be posted for only one month after the final 10x10 pixel square ($200) is taken, and if the pixel grid is not completely full, the drawing will take place after one full year, since the sites launch on December 5th, 2006. Apparently, for the advertisers, their ads will conceivably yield results only if they get in early enough to achieve reasonable exposure time. Equally apparent is that this has not escaped their perception.
In only a week's time, according to the Pixelotto site, Tew has amassed $138,000 towards the prize money, or $276,000 in advertising sales. Anyone objectively observing the mad rush to get ad space can reasonably assume that his site is a guaranteed lock for his goal of a second million. While this is a tremendous forecast for Tew, one is left to wonder how well this bodes for his advertisers, the former sponsors of his "education". All indications are that any buy after a maximum of six months will be monies better spent on rest-room repair or an upgrade in the food quality in the company canteen. Apparently, they realize this since they are gobbling up ad space in a way that hearkens back to the halcyon days of Pac Man. So, while no one could project Tew a loser in all of this, it's reasonable to assume that Round 2 of The Million Dollar Home Page could well be a loser for the advertisers. The bigger a success Pixelotto becomes, the less the advertisers get for their money. In fact, if Tew is too successful, his pixel-grid will be reset and cleared in as little as one month. Since Tew plans on recycling his second venture at least once every 13 months, and seemingly limits traffic by preventing the lotto players from gaining credit past their first ten clicks in a day, (a move that may even the playing field for those with aspirations to financial nobility but will also limit the number of hits an advertiser can hope for) one has to wonder how long this site can sustain advertiser interest especially given the correspondingly exorbitant fees they are being charged. "Get less for your advertising dollars" hardly seems like either an enticing slogan, a well thought out marketing plan or a sought after advertiser's goal.
These questions about cost versus return on Tew's new site will inevitably be debated by sundry industry professionals over the next several months of the new site's existence and of course the predicted results and the vindication of the viewpoints of this article remain to be seen. There is however a new player in the game and one, it is fair to say that was both unexpected and unforeseen by the reigning pixel king. Alex Tew now has some real competition. Apparently he wasn't the only one obtaining a hands on education; just across the Atlantic Ocean, in April of this year, two New Yorkers, Tim Hannan and Lou D'Ambrosio, young entrepreneurs in their own right, launched The Eternal Wall. Wall Around the World.com, a site based loosely on the original Million Dollar Home Page, offers a multitude of options for both the average web browser and the serious advertiser. They have learned much from both the success of the inventor and the mistakes of his site's original copycats and their gratitude to them is at once both genuine and a gauntlet toss. They have managed to create a site which functions in much the same fashion but is far more aesthetically pleasing and a fraction of the cost. (Cost conscious advertisers take note - $0.05 per pixel compared to $2.00) It is not merely a generic pixel grid; the Eternal Wall is an artistically crafted cyber landscape, a brick wall that travels along a road, from city to city, starting in the creators' home state of New York with a potential for coverage limited only by the real circumference of the planet earth. It offers a multitude of flash games, and music from original artists that can be enjoyed while browsing the first three "cyber-miles" of their landscape. While advertisers on Tew's site can spend $800.00 for a spot that requires a magnifying glass to be appreciated if not seen, on Wallaroundtheworld.com a comparative $2,000.00 sized spot can be obtained for $50.00 Unlike Pixelotto, Hannan and D'Ambrosio's "Wall" guarantees your pixel-brick will go untouched for decades to come. Wallaroundtheworld.com doesn't offer the opportunity to win a million dollars, at least not yet. Then too, with the abundance of state lotteries, casinos and racetracks in the New York region alone, they doubt that this will be much of a drawback. All "odds" being even, so to speak, it's safe to say that both users and advertisers will, upon first glimpse of the site, see the expansive potential in their idea. The advertisers have the ability to actually modify the cyber environment that serves as the medium for their ad as well as create eye-catching ads of their own, thereby putting few if any limits on their creative advertising approach and thus, maximizing their hit potential.
Pixelotto.com will definitely have at least two winners. Alex Tew and the randomly selected one million dollar winner lucky enough not to have wasted their time clicking on ads everyday. Tew offers his quasi-celebrity and its attendant publicity and the success of his first Million Dollar Home Page as an incentive for traffic to his new site. In its current state it will allow an immediate boost in traffic to anyone who is quick enough and invests enough money to be seen among the thousands of 200 dollar, virtually indistinguishable squares. The Eternal Wall on the other hand, while not as widely known and unable to offer the immediate response of Pixelotto for its advertisers, offers the potential to reach high traffic heights and to sustain them for several years to come. Admittedly in its infancy, wallaroundtheworld.com offers advertisers the same potential today that was offered by Tew's original site several years ago. While neither negating his accomplishments nor denigrating his original concept, both Hannan and D'Ambrosio have managed to achieve what eluded Tew's original apers: a genuine building upon and improvement in his original idea; creative structuring and improvements that will serve to benefit both users and advertisers. Combined with a lower one-time cost that will remain fixed as the click potential continues to grow, it is, even at this initial stage, a buy that shouldn't be overlooked by anyone seeking to expand customer or client bases.
While the United States has been slow to warm up to the concept of pixel sales, it has by no means been inattentive to its potential. That potential is vast and wallaroundthewall.com is uniquely positioned to tap into it. Such positioning isn't due to gimmicks and it isn't due to celebrity; it is due to an in-depth understanding of the medium coupled with the creative flair that will make the best use of it on behalf of their clients and visitors. Both Tim Hannan and Lou D'Ambrosio remain profoundly grateful to Alex Tew for creating the foundation upon which they intend to build. They do however question his current site's continuing value to its advertisers and see this latest resurgent edifice as a house of pixel cards for the price of a framework that should, for its advertisers' sake, be far more solid.
Perhaps Tew will once again "get rich quick"; given his pricing structure in relation to how little he is actually providing his advertisers in the long term, he'll have to. A commitment to becoming wealthy at record speed is not entirely un-laudable especially when one has already established a verifiable track record at doing so. It should however give advertisers pause to consider alternatives to formerly useful opportunities that are now designed to benefit only the site seller. There is now a site that is committed to the long haul for both itself and its clients and it's certainly one that bears further investigation. Wallaroundtheworld.com has a bright future and offers the greater potential for its clients. With all due deference to Alex Tew's original genius and the success he achieved, it may indeed be the speed of that success that will be his new Pixelotto site's downfall. In his rush to achieve fast profits, all indications are that he has forgotten the needs of the advertisers his site was ostensibly designed to serve. His house of pixels could well come tumbling down. He needn't worry though, there are two bright young Americans here with that better mousetrap just waiting to pick up the pieces. Their own particular American revolution in internet marketing and advertising may just deliver to their British counterpart the same kind of old fashioned "whuppin" that our forefathers meted out to his ancestors. Time and history will tell.
J. Schaefer
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