2006.01.03
So some more-clever-than-me guy figured out a ridiculous way to get a million bucks from the Internet... he's selling advertising space at a buck a pixel, in 10x10 lots. The idea is so attracting enough attention that it's a good deal for him (obviously) as well as the people buying spaces, at least for now. In fact, on a (expensive) whim I bought two locations, one for kisrael.com and one for loveblender. Go to The Million Dollar Homepage, look for the dollar sign on an orange background near the bottom left corner... I put the heart there, and my portrait underneath.
The funny thing is, it's working a bit, I'm probably get 1.5 to 2 times the normal number of unique visitors on this site.
I think I bought in both with some weird voodoo that maybe I'll come up with something remotely as profitably clever, and also because working with 10x10 pixels was such an interesting challenge. It reminded me strongly of good ol' pixeltime.
Of course, the really sad thing is all the people trying to set up slight variations on the theme. "Page 2" is a prominent link above where I set up, and is trying to just do more of the same at 90 cents a block. I've seen one aimed at women, one that allowed animated GIFs (what a nightmare) and one metasite that lets you setup your own service. (Actually, something similar might not be a bad fundraiser if done correctly, a kind of shared graffiti wall, maybe with bigger squares and a built-in editor.)
Oddness of the Moment
At Harvard Square I saw some bumpersticker graffiti for Lick My Jesus, a very odd comics-from-pictures-of-ourselves-with-speech-balloons kind of site.
Historical Footnote of the Moment
Wow. The web is letting me down....last night I caught some of a documentary about Operation Archery, an early British Commando/combined forces action against Germans in Norway. They mentioned that one part of the assault was led by "Mad" Jack Churchill (no relation to Winston, though some places claim otherwise)... they say he was quite the character, leading he charge in kilt, with a claymore sword, and maybe even bagpipes, but the web really doesn't have much to say about him.