The Million Dollar Homepage (2005) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Million Dollar Homepage (2005)

#21

Post by Jgrubb » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 11:30 AM UTC

mixmax wrote: post #15

An explanation for those who've never seen this before: A long long time ago on an Internet far from here a young man had an idea. His idea was simple but genius. He would make a homepage (as they were called back then) with a grid of 100 by 100 squares each ten pixels across. Each square could hold an image 10x10 pixels. One million pixels. Back when we didn't have retina displays and Stallmann was still young desig…

This has been here for 9 minutes and nobody has pointed out that a 10x10 square for $10 is not a dollar a pixel?!?

Re: The Million Dollar Homepage (2005)

#22

Post by stwr » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 11:31 AM UTC

But did you guys find Waldo? ;)

Re: The Million Dollar Homepage (2005)

#23

Post by user24 » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 11:33 AM UTC

Jgrubb wrote: post #21

mixmax wrote: post #15

An explanation for those who've never seen this before: A long long time ago on an Internet far from here a young man had an idea. His idea was simple but genius. He would make a homepage (as they were called back then) with a grid of 100 by 100 squares each ten pixels across. Each square could hold an image 10x10 pixels. One million pixels. Back when we didn't have retina displays and Stallmann was still young desig…

This has been here for 9 minutes and nobody has pointed out that a 10x10 square for $10 is not a dollar a pixel?!?

It was $100 for a 10x10 square; http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/buy.php

Re: The Million Dollar Homepage (2005)

#24

Post by kayoone » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 11:34 AM UTC

mixmax wrote: post #15

An explanation for those who've never seen this before: A long long time ago on an Internet far from here a young man had an idea. His idea was simple but genius. He would make a homepage (as they were called back then) with a grid of 100 by 100 squares each ten pixels across. Each square could hold an image 10x10 pixels. One million pixels. Back when we didn't have retina displays and Stallmann was still young desig…

This was 2005, so its not that long ago, we already had facebook for example ;) Still the idea was pretty novel and worked, many tried to copy the approach and failed. Even Alex Tew, the guy behind the site, came back later with a Photobook and some other pixel based business idea (pixelotto) but couldnt replicate the success.

Re: The Million Dollar Homepage (2005)

#25

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 11:34 AM UTC

Jgrubb wrote: post #21

mixmax wrote: post #15

An explanation for those who've never seen this before: A long long time ago on an Internet far from here a young man had an idea. His idea was simple but genius. He would make a homepage (as they were called back then) with a grid of 100 by 100 squares each ten pixels across. Each square could hold an image 10x10 pixels. One million pixels. Back when we didn't have retina displays and Stallmann was still young desig…

This has been here for 9 minutes and nobody has pointed out that a 10x10 square for $10 is not a dollar a pixel?!?

[deleted]

Re: The Million Dollar Homepage (2005)

#26

Post by ars » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 11:35 AM UTC

The most interesting thing about this is how many of the links don't go anywhere anymore.

After a few minutes searching I was only able to find one site that still worked.

Re: The Million Dollar Homepage (2005)

#27

Post by kayoone » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 11:37 AM UTC

user24 wrote: post #14

Forgot all about this. I toyed with the idea of buying some ad space when there was still some space available. In fact I remember when it was 80% free still. I think I'm right in saying he went on to try another iteration of the pixel idea; http://www.pixelotto.com By his twitter, it seems he's now running an iPhone meditation app at http://calm.com

Apart from pixelotto he also started onemillionpeople.com which basically was a photobook where you could buy a place for your own picture. I think pixelotto had some small success but overall his later "riding the wave" ideas didnt do to well.

Re: The Million Dollar Homepage (2005)

#28

Post by darrhiggs » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 11:39 AM UTC

Here is another writeup:

http://www.sexeys.somerset.sch.uk/alumni/alex-tew

…and our old school is really called Sexey's.

Re: The Million Dollar Homepage (2005)

#29

Post by marquis » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 11:40 AM UTC

BuddhaSource wrote: post #19

Nostalgic! Btw how did it go viral back then? Curious. Was it cause of his story? Pay for tuition.

I seem to remember a lot of mailing lists discussing it, which is how I believe things went viral certainly in the 90s.

Re: The Million Dollar Homepage (2005)

#30

Post by wlj » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 11:40 AM UTC

I actually advertised on this when it came out. $100 for the little zebra print square, top left corner, 2nd row down, "YOUR OWN PHOTO WEBSITE" (just to the right of 'Bingo').

Was fun to be a part of it going viral at the time.

EDIT: Incidentally, the amount of spam I've received since for clone sites has been staggering.