Monday, September 26, 2005

Million Dollar Homepages With a Twist

Recently, I posted about The Million Dollar Homepage here. The highly successful idea: let people pay for pixel space to be shown on the site for several years. Now I’m amazed by the number of forum pointers to copycat web sites with a very similar idea – some, however, seemingly less successful, as they’re still empty:

• The Million Penny Homepage
  (“A lot cheaper”)
• Another Million Dollar Homepage
  (“Looks better”)
• The Million Euro Homepage
  (“For EU folks”)
• Half-A-Buck Pixels
  (“Half the price and double the length of time”)
• The Million Bucks Puzzle
  (“Become part of the million dollar puzzle and win the mystery prize”)
• Links Across America
  (Buy pixels on a map of the USA)
• The Million Yuan Homepage
  (Actually, he got the idea from The Million Penny Homepage, so it’s a copy of a copy)
• The Australian Million Dollar Homepage
  (“I’ve got one too!”)
• The People’s Vehicle
  (“Charm of the original with a twist”)
• 250000.org
  (With a chance to win $25,000 $2,500)
• The Zero Dollar Homepage
  (Yes, it’s actually completely free)

So, is Alex Tew, creator of the original Million Dollar Homepage, worried about copycats? Not really, he says:

“It is bound to happen (this is the internet [after all]), and infact, I think it will work in my favour. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So I think any copy-cat sites will only have pure comedy value, whereas mine possibly has a bit of comedy PLUS some actual pull in terms of advertising dollars (I will be able to afford swanky socks, they will only get to buy crappy ones probably! They could have my old ones, if they like).

So I say good luck to the imitators! While in my opinion it’s not very cool – I would prefer to come up with something original – in many ways the act of copying (perhaps more on a subconcious level than anything) is the basis of all creativity.”

Million Dollar Homepages ... by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (3)

>> More posts

Advertisement