Million dollar homepage becomes just that

The million dollar home page has completed its challenge in selling a million pixels of advertising on one page

12 January 2006 14:34 GMT / By Stuart Miles

The million dollar home page has completed its challenge in selling a million pixels of advertising on one page.

The site sold the last 1,000 pixels in an eBay auction, which ended last night for $38,100.

At one point spoof bidding forced the last 1,000 pixels up to $160,000 but in the end the sites owner, Alex Tew, settled for the $38,100 bringing the overall revenue of the site to $1,037,100.

The winning bidder is an eBay power seller.

The site, which has been surrounded by a media storm across the globe worked by dividing the homepage into 10,000 boxes, each made up of 100 pixels.

Companies or individuals are invited to buy one or more box for $100 each - $1 a pixel - and cover it with a logo. When a websurfer clicks on the logo he is transported to the company or person's website.

In an interview with The Times newspaper, Tew said “My aim at the moment is to go on to university next year but there's always a chance things could keep getting bigger and bigger”. The bulk of the money he has made will be reinvested in future business ideas. “This is probably not the last penny I'll ever make but it's likely to be the easiest”.

According to the papers online site, he plans to donate a “decent” proportion of his earnings to the Prince's Trust which gave him a loan for a previous venture when nobody else would.

>> Comment on this story