The Million Dollar Idea - How to Market?

A recent thread on here introduced me to this page, http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/. My question is this: What do you think this guy did after he created his page? How did he start to market this?

I mean obviously, there was some sort of Viral aspect but how do you think he got started with getting this idea out in the open?

 

Some lady that worked for a major internet marketing agency basically did everything for him. I have no idea how she found him and how he got so lucky, but a lot of wealth comes from one sure lucky event.

 

Usually its just a matter of connections. Having friends who own companies or know of companies who would be interested in doing this kind of advertising is all you really need. Then once you get rolling they tell their friends, etc etc, and its the web. So once the ball gets rolling EVERYBODY starts to find out and its simply a matter of time at that point.

 

The better question is, how did Mark Zuckerberg create FaceBook, now the number 2 site in the world, behind Google. The value is around $25 billion. How did a college student have the perseverance to create such a great site? HE WAS MOTIVATED. Motivation does everything!

 

Wikipedia explains a lot of how it generated traffic that it could sell to potential clients.

 

This is one crazy website!

 

An interesting post about two guys who started another viral concept after seeing the milliondollarhomepage, but it didn't work for them:
On another note, I've found an article from a trial of 2 guys to emulate the milliondollarhomepage success by destroying a viper car, but the viral sauce just wasn't there this time: http://davepit.com/tag/million-dollar-homepage/
They didn't lose any money, but they never could attract mass media coverage on their project.

 

since the idea is no more orignal its value is also no more the same so the same thing wont sell again

 

Bohra have you seen the project Alex Tew is promoting on his twitter?
It's a book with one million faces (submitted by "users") that he wants to publish, 800 faces on a page, it's 1250 pages, and he seems he's selling sponsorship for each page. I wouldn't be surprised if it catches on.

 

That depends how people react now since this concept is little modified from the main concept it may work but if you expect the same thing to work again its not always possible

 

I know, I had a copycat in french which I started in october (Alex started end of august)
well, I sold a few spot, but nothing happened like on milliondollarhomepage
I wasn't too keen on working the promotion even more, I started it in the idea that it would catch on in France and I would have nothing else to do that answer interviews, sell pixels..
Of course one of the problem being that in France they are retarded compared to the US, at the time you would have 1 people in 1000 who would know about paypal for instance, let alone use it to pay!
In US and UK, webmasters were more used to pay for online traffic at the time.
Not mentionning the fact that I wanted to sell the pixel at 1 euro instead of $1 !! But I sold a few blocks, it's already exceptional

 

Haha your bad luck but guess for you it was worth a try ..right now the web is filled with soo many clones that the whole concept seems to be like a spam

 

This is the weirdest site I have ever seen. Still confused how it made some much money for Alex Tew. I think I missed a trick here. Oh well back to the conventional for me.

 

Well its like sellings ads at that time it got a lot of attention on TV and news so people went away and bought spots

 

I bought 500 pixels at the time to link to my french copycat. Ah if I knew better back then.. But I didn't

 

Although this was probably 90% luck, it does go to show that completely out-of-the-box thinking can pay off.

 

It was the right idea, at the right time, with the right people involved.
When it comes to sites like that, you need to be the first in your area.
Example, if there are no social buying sites like groupon in your area, then you could make a lot of money locally doing that, but if there are 3 or 4 sites like that, you might as well put your money somewhere else.

Viral sites are generally not duplicate-able unless you see an idea that is just not being marketed effectively.
For example, locally lets say Groupon has launched but no one knows who they are... you have a small window to grab more market share, and put people in the mind set that you were first there, even if you were not.

 

He was sucessful because the media decided to give a crap, if they didn't he'd a close up shop pretty quickly.

 

Yeah- it's an equation that requires good ideas/good people/excellent execution/luck/media timing/networking/marketing-- any one of these can bring a great idea down. You just have to keep throwing ideas at the wall and hope one of them sticks. Unfortunately, REALLY good ideas often require a lot of money and time and if they don't stick you end up with nothing. But you won't accomplish anything without taking risks.

 

I personally don't like the idea, but If the person who came up with it likes it, thats all that matters.