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Sadly, the two projects seem to have failed. They can’t be found anymore on Google. Though it is a sad thing, it is not very surprising. As pointed out by my predecessors, those websites had to rely on huge network effect to success. The fact is that they didn’t manage to do so. Why?
I agree with C. Raidron who underlines the lack of novelty of the first project. It seems obvious that MDH’s success was based on some “hype wave”. At this time, it was completely new and other projects could have surfed on this wave … but not 7 years later. Companies were probably looking to be a part of something unique. It is a little like climbing the Everest mount: being the first would generate some fame but doing the same several years later far less.
The network effect in Tew project came from the media coverage, which came from the novelty and the “craziness” of his project. In order to reproduce a similar effect, you would have to find something new and interesting for people. If somebody would like to launch a new Youtube today, he would surely fail if it brings nothing new because it will not interest anyone.
The basis of a website which wants to sell advertisement space is to find a way to convince people to spend some time on this page. To me, neither Logobrowser nor Worldpixel managed to do so.
An example to attract people could have been to propose to upload a picture and the website would have arranged the logos on its page to shape the forms on the picture (“Mosaic pictures”, example : http://www.aolej.com/lessonsx/media/1/ghost_mosaic_big.jpg ). People could upload their profile picture and then share the result on social network. Thus hopefully creating some snowball effect (people would more and more try and share). The company would have gained the network effect it was looking for.
The point of the upper paragraph is to show that if a simple student can come up in five minutes with a little trick, entrepreneurs investing money and trying to attract media and people’s attention surely could too.
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As the two websites aren’t available anymore, I had to base my commentary on the message Mr. Belleflamme received by the two people launching their project, and on previous commentary that had been posted.
Apparently, Logobrowser is a copy paste version of Alex Tew’s successful website. One student/visitor said that it was slightly different as it was aiming at companies rather than John Doe, but for me the target of Million Dollars Home Page (MDHP) was also companies, so I’ll assume for the rest that it is the same concept.
I think the project failed (the fact that it isn’t available anymore reinforce my opinion), because of the lack of novelty of the project. What makes MDHP successful in my sense is the hype created by something that has never been done before. 2005 was the “beginning” of internet, and the network effect of being part of something new that everyone was talking about was very attractive for companies, in my opinion.
Nowadays, I highly doubt that it can work again: to obtain enough visibility, you’d have to buy enough pixels to catch “the eye” of the visitor (the 10×10 minimum package on MDHP was barely visible amongst the others companies that bought larger spaces), and you’ll need a network effect leading other companies to join the project. But as I mentioned, the lack of novelty will not get the project to be known by customers, as it will not get the media coverage of its predecessor. So small companies won’t invest more money in order to be more visible on a website they doubt customers will visit, and larger companies have more effective means to advertise themselves.
I did not understood the principle of the second website, except that it was a bit more of a game, and there was free pixels. Based on that, the attractiveness of free materials and the more interactive part of the “game” system give more chance to that project to be successful. Companies could anticipate that consumers will be attracted by that and be more willing to invest in advertising themselves via the project. But the way the originator wrote his mail, and the fact that it is copypaste on IpDigit (“Lol, I have no friends […]) doesn’t help his project to look very serious (but the fact is that at my first reading, I clicked on this website to look what it was about, without even thinking about taking a look at logobrowser.)
So in conclusion, if I had to “invest” my thrust in one of these two projects, it would bet on the second one.
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We are still on the upswing of these ideas of crowd-funding: Hence, before the law of diminishing marginal returns starts kicking in, many of these will benefit from the buzz of novelty and be successful independently of their true value. Whichever way you measure that. Which does not mean that anything goes. Particularly when ideas start sounding so much like one another and coming in droves. Then, DMR kick in that much faster.
Moreover, companies on the internet are not really the public one should be striving for. No, they have their own channels and the force of collective intelligence is not properly harnessed this way. There are several online based companies that serve as umbrellas to other ones (I recall emagister, an online school course provider whose clients are schools that pay to be under that umbrella), and there are several others already barring the market to an individual entrant. Not even network effects can help against such successful first-movers. Internet evens the playing field only up to a point: a superstar effect in a saturated area where one offers an undifferentiated product seems unlikely and that strategy spells little chances for success.
So let me join in the bandwagon and say that LogoBrowser seems to me to have smaller chances of survival.
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The main concept behind those websites is indeed the Network Effect. Knowing this, and knowing that there already is a popular website based on the same idea of selling pixels, few people are going to sponsor another website less known. As other students already said the first one, Logo Browser, has little chance to be very profitable as it just a copy of the main idea from Alex Tew.
I don’t think it has the potential to become the next big thing because it isn’t creative enough. Websites like this need to generate some kind of buzz to create a network effect which is essential to be successful. This buzz already happened with Alex Tew and his million dollar idea and it is not likely to happen again with the same concept.
For me Worldpixel isn’t that different from the other ones. Although it tries to be more interactive I think it has few potential, for the same reasons mentioned earlier. Like someone already said in a previous comment, being a French websites narrows it down from 7 billion potential visitors to 60 million which is a huge loss.
A lot of people tried and they all kind of failed. Some even bought pixels of the Million Dollar Homepage to place ads for their website with the same concept. I went to some of those and they all seem to be down. This indicates that there is little hope for a happy ending for copycats, especially 10 years after the original one came online.
I don’t get how the Million Dollar Homepage could have been so successful, so maybe I’m mistaken about those websites. But by reading previous comments I think we are all backing each other up.
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As some previous commentators have written, the success of this type of profit-seeking website is strongly based on networking effects. These effects are the results of word-of-mouth that lead mass adhesion of potential customers. Any mention of the above websites will conribute to strengthen their reputation and therefore increase the number of visitors. Just as an example, I feel confident saying that most of us that read the article went ot check out at least one of the two websites mentionned in the article.
Regarding the potential financial value of such initiative I have serious doubts. Although it has proven to be successful in the past, I believe that it is the kind of experience whose success is mostly due some sort of buzz effect. These effects are created by something that has never been seen before and that spreads quickly, creating some sort of network effect. The first time a web page of such sort was created it benefitiated of a large publicity through national/international media. I highly doubt that Logobrowser or Worldpixel will receive any other citation than the one that has been offered to them on this website. I am not hereby questionning the credibility of the blog but I simply believe that for network effects to take place there is a novelty factor that nees to be present. And with that aspect taken into consideration Logobrowser is strictly reproducing Alex Tew’s idea whereas Worldpixel brings a little novelty to it. It also provide some incentives to visit the site because there is an actual possibility to win some prize. Personnally I know that I will never go back on this kind of page and unless you benefit from that famous “buzz” people will not even hear about it: therefore providing few incentives to potantial advertisers.
To conclude I would say that there are many factors that will tilt self fulfilling prophecies one way or another. Novelty being one of the most important. The advertisement they might enjoy from reliable and well-known public media or other aspects such as the importance of first subscribers are paramount. Regarding these two websites, unless some media relay the information to part of the globe where the Million Dollar Homepage was less successful or unless famous organizations are early buyers they are doomed to fail.
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Starting companies and investing in startups is a risky way to earn a living, according to Paul Graham’s article in the Business Insider the odds of succeeding is just 1 in 10 and for these new companies to grow a lot of researchers on the topic point out that innovation is one of the key elements to succeed.
When reading the projects they are suggesting I can’t see the innovation in it, Alex Tew had the success he had because of the innovation in his idea, being the first in the market always takes you a step higher from those who follow unless they keep innovating. If this projects could bring the same idea but with some kind of innovation I could see them succeeding, but with the same exact concept just different themes, maybe the people won’t be as interested in investing as with Alex Tew. This is where IPdigIT may help, so creators can know they still need an innovating concept in their project.
Another disadvantages that this 2 projects face is the competition in the Internet market; they are not the only ones trying to copy The Million Dollar Homepage, so by creating a new business in a very competitive market and to a specific target, the Internet users, this limits the amount of demand they may have. When Alex Tew started selling pixels on the web, there was not as much competition as there is now.
By reading other comments I started to understand the concept of Worldpixel, but I agree with Marina’s comment about the information being limited for French speaking people only. And also Marcin Gburski seems more dedicated to the project, LogoBrowser, than Matt in his project, Worldpixel, and how much you’re willing to give for your project also affects in the success you’re going to make.
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If I had to predict the success of both sites, I would say that LogoBrowser has greater odds than Worldpixel to succeed. The reason behind this thought is that the owner of LogoBrowser is not only copying an idea that has proven its value but is also changing it a little bit by aiming for a different public (by doing so, it is avoiding the problem of déjà-vu ). In my opinion, LogoBrowser is clearly aiming for companies rather than for John Doe.You need indeed to be a company in order to get a logo.
Thus this site might interest a lot of companies because it is a way for them to get huge publicity for a very low cost. Even though the width of the publicity depends on the buzz that will make the site, they still should buy some pixels to get their logo on the website because of their low opportunity cost.
Talking about the promotion of the site, it has to be in one hand widely promoted, that is on many mediums as possible, and in the other hand well promoted, that is seeking for the right people to make the advertising for them.
Concerning this latter subject, we might ask ourselves if IPdigIT is the right site on which LogoBrowser wants to be promoted. To get the answer, we need to know what is the profile of the average reader on this blog. Is he a student ? Or is he working in a company ?
In the first case, I do not think that LogoBrowser will find its happiness on the site simply because students, by their origin, do not owe a company or work in it. Most of them can be classified in a not interested folder . But in the second case, I think that LogoBrowser has a real opportunity to take off for the reasons explained above.
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My opinion is that this article written on IPdigIT will certainly increase the awareness of those two sites. So it could lead to a snowball effect; in condition that users’ interest in those sites already exist. And, as we can observe in previous comments, people aren’t really interested in them. So I don’t think that it will lead to “snowball”. Those websites do not attract users (at least until now), so the network effect won’t be activated as new users won’t be converted.
This situation will be critical for those websites as they offer services and rely on the network effect. The main challenge for them is to reach a high number of users. This is why they should do a more dynamic promotion.
However, a distinction must be done between those two sites. World Pixel has more probability to enjoy a network effect as it centers around a game. This kind of attraction may interest users and then lead to more and more users joining the website. Sites have to offer a particularity that make users want to pay for it. It was the case for Million Dollar Homepage that has for objective to collect money for university; and this good cause made people want to participate.
In conclusion, IPdigIT might facilitate a network effect for World Pixel and Logo Browser. But those sites should primarily focus on simple questions: “what is the value we offer to our clients? Is it clearly definite and explain? Will they want to pay for it?”
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I have some difficult to believe that the logobrowser and worldpixel ideas will be successful, despite the contribution of IPdigIT.
These platforms don’t bring something unique and fun. I don’t see a reason to like or share them with my friends. It is only interesting for organizations to pay for advertisement on these platforms if the network effect is generated, but, as a user, why should I come back to see them again and why should I bring more people to do it? If I am looking for a product or a service, I am certainly not going to these pages to look for logos. That doesn’t provide any useful information I cannot get from other better structured sites. Furthermore, the experience of visiting the platforms wasn’t engaging enough. The design is not that unique, the reason why they are doing it is not clear for me and this information is not easily understandable from the FAQ list.
Alex Tew’s initial idea had the merit of being the first of the kind, so lots of buzz was created because of being such a crazy and new idea. Moreover, besides the novelty aspect, another crucial element was the cause of the project. Alex wanted to use its platform to pay for his education and he made that extremely clear and easy to find (first aspect of his FAQ list). Mixing this new idea with such a noble cause with which everyone can identify with (everyone recognize it is not very interesting to graduate already with a huge debt to pay back), were, in my opinion, the elements that generated the snow ball effect, further strengthen by the media coverage.
There is nothing really proprietary about this idea, so it is actually pretty much a red ocean right now. There are currently hundreds of copycat Web sites selling pixels that are no longer adding any value.
I wish Marcin and Matt all the luck and I hope they can prove me wrong!
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A networking effect has its roots in the sharing of information about such websites. Therefore, even if IPdigIT doesn’t have the audience of the BBC yet, it has contributed in raising awareness in those initiatives with a small step, through sharing. Plus, thanks to web crawlers algorithms, LogoBrowser and Worldpixel’s ranking in search engines is improved by displaying their URL on as many websites as possible. Consequently, this can only be beneficial for them.
However, not only those initiatives don’t have the innovativeness of the first player in the game as said in previous comments, but also, those websites probably lack incentives for visitors to come back. Indeed, even though famous and original, it’s only a web-page where a lot of advertising is displayed. Various studies have shown that obtrusive advertising on websites can be inefficient, and one would probably prefer not to see any on YouTube or Facebook. But here, since it’s only a huge wall of advertising, the internet users probably don’t have reasons other than curiosity or sympathy for the fund-raiser to visit it. Despite this, The Million Dollar Homepage was a success indeed, but it seems difficult to me to imagine frequent visitors other than advertisers that prospect the website’s popularity for future investments, or previous investors that verify if their expectations in popularity are met.
Concerning the two websites, I agree with the previous comments, at least World Pixel has the originality over its predecessors to give the possibility to buy parts of the World like in a big game of “Risk”. I can only wish them that investors will have favorable expectations and help them reach their goals.
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LogoBrowser and World Pixel’s business models are endowed of a huge potential profit, at least, in the short run. The reason for that is that they present the dream combination of any business: low production cost (all it takes is the creation a friendly use interface in addition to some maintenance costs) and high potential source of revenue (the nature of the product – small size of the “space”/”squares”- enhances the trade of large volumes of the product).
There is little doubt about how crucial the existence of positive network effect is for the success of those business models presented. The combination of the following elements makes me believe that the network effects can be triggered successfully for types of enterprise investigated here:
a) Both the logo and the pixels are gathered under a single platform. Therefore, one can observe a drastic reduction of the searching costs from the point of view of someone who is willing to invest in these kind of business (one stop-shopping argument);
b) Even though one may question how fruitful marketing strategy based on these kind of activity can be (exposing your brand in a small window within a huge panel with thousands of other similar advertising may not be so appealing), it is undeniable that both platforms mentioned in the blog are an inexpensive sources for brands promotion (certainly substantially cheaper than it would be to publish in other websites). The fee requested by for the use of LogoBrowser and World Pixel are definitely affordable not only by small business, but also for anyone who interested in sharing his/her artistic talents.
I can also elaborate on potential reasons of why the network effect might not work properly for this sort of business:
a) I believe that there are reasons to believe that the network effects may be last very shortly. If it is the case of thinking that this kind of business is successful (high profitability) due to the existence of low initial investment (low barriers to entry) and of the possibility of having this service under in a single platform, then there must be the case that there are room for entry in this market. At this stage, once the increase in competition level is consolidated, it will be expected that online users will start to split their attention among several websites providing the same type of service, which would ruin the likelihood of a successful network effect in each provider and, thereby, its profitability.
b) Specifically for the case of WordPixel, the proposition that the “advertise will be displayed for life” may work against the propagation of network effects after some length of time: if the ads can lasts forever, then users may incur in significant time searching for some sort of novelty in the website, which in the course of the time, may make them to browse over the website often.
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Back in 2005 the idea behind The Million Dollar Homepage was original and the attention that it got, though in combination with luck, would have never happened if it hadn’t been a fresh concept. Immediately after Alex Tew’s idea got around we saw a number of similar, or just plain identical, websites. As you would imagine, they did not fare well as they were simply copies of the original. In addition, none had any real competitive advantage over the others.
Another concept could recapture the same level of attention from companies and the media as Alex’s website did, but for that to happen it would need to be truly innovative. So innovative in fact, that it would actually seem to be overreaching to think about comparing it to The Million Dollar Homepage.
The two examples that this article is mentioning have a lot in common with Alex Tew’s website, which means that they are unlikely to reach the same level of popularity.
The first one, LogoBrowser, lacks any originality and looks like it was made in the 90’s. As Matthieu said in his post, the website takes a long time to load and that wait is not rewarded when we enter the homepage. I see no reason why this website would take off.
The second one, WorldPixel, is already a lot more creative as it is a game. It seems a little complicated which can be a good thing if enough people finds it interesting and spread the word.
Although the basic idea is very alike to what The Million Dollar Homepage was, it adds enough of its own ingredients to make it a viable concept on its own.
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Reading the first idea made me quite interested. It shows how creative people can be in earning money, especially if they have a final goal. Funding their education might be a great challenge in front of many students, and many people might donate, just because they have experienced the same difficulties. I really admire people who try to achieve their goal and use all their talent to do this.
The first thought that came into my mind when I was reading further, was that these two men are just trying to earn some easy money, hoping that the Alex’s success might be repeated.
Personally, I wouldn’t donate after knowing that they are free-riding on somebody else’s idea.
I completely agree with the previous comment (the comment of Matthieu) about the Logo’s Project, so I am not going to repeat all the things that have already been mentioned.
The second project seems better and more interesting, it can attract easily your attention.
However there is one problem. The whole information is written only in French, people who don’t know French won’t be able to understand the idea of the website. After I have read the comment of Matthieu, I can see that it is more interesting than I expected as it has an element of a game and there is a chance of even wining a prize. However I am not able to take part in.
The potential purchasers are limited only French speaking people. Only because of this, Matt’s success is limited, even though his website seems original. Probably when people come up with idea and it has some success don’t think of a way to improve it and to make it even more profitable.
IPdigIT might not be at the same level as BBC yet, but it will not only popularize these projects, but could give some new ideas to the creators of LogoBrowser and Worldpixel.
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First, I’m very pessimistic about LogoBrowser. The first reason is that I don’t real see the originality of the concept. For me, it is the same idea of Alex Tew (or I didn’t understand the concept maybe…). I think that without an original concept, it is very difficult to succeed. Another reason is that he focuses on the strongest brands logo. We see on the website of Alex Tew, that the concept succeeded with not known company: some very little company I think. This concept will not work for big company from my point of view because they didn’t have interest to promote: they have the money to make advertising everywhere. And finally the website takes a long time to load (more than 30seconds for the demo website on my computer). To conclude I think that the website will not succeed. So I don’t think that this article of IpdigIt will change anything.
Secondly, I’m much more optimistic with Worldpixel. With this website, he creates a much more original concept that LogoBrowser: he mixes publicity with a game. There are some free pixels on the map that we can find by solving puzzles for example; so it is a way to attract more people on the website, those who just want to play without paying. More people are on the website, and more the companies have interest to by some pixel to make advertisement. There are also other advantages, we can win money by participating, so the probability to attract people raise. The objective is to help an association, so I think that companies are more likely to pay for an association than for a particular. To conclude, from my point of view, this website is more likely to succeed that LogoBrowser, and maybe this article on IpdigIt will be the opportunity to make known this website and participate to its success.
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This article presents two projects based on the network effect and on the website of Mr. Tew. It is asked to give our opinion on the projects. Unfortunately, both of them failed (the domain of LogoBrowser has even been bought by a Chinese company), so I have to write my opinion based on the text. It is also likely that my opinion will be biased by the fact that the projects failed.
First of all, I have the feeling that both websites were just a copy of the concept of the Million Dollar Home Page. The first project has been successful because it was a new concept and people were curious about the idea. Mr. Tew had “the good idea at the right time” and used the benefice of a global coverage thanks to the BBC.
The Million Dollar Home Page was just a kind of buzz in 2005 and an original way for Mr. Tew to raise some money (1). It has been helped by the network effect, which can be defined such as “the effect that one user of a good or a service has on the value of that product to other people” (2). In this case, as companies were buying pixels, other companies had to do the same to stay in the loop. Indeed, everyone was speaking of this website.
In a second time, I think that the Internet has changed since 2005. As I said, the two projects were just kind of copies of something that worked 10 years ago (which is very long on the Internet). Furthermore, there are other ways to promote a website on the Internet today (Google for a simple example). They are maybe more expensive but they are really more efficient than some pixels in the middle of other pixels. This is why I think those projects failed.
To answer to the question of Prof. Belleflamme (Can IpDigIt start a snowball effect ?), I would say that the answer is yes. If the project that are proposed on the website are really good, some influencers can see them and promote them to their community. Nowadays, one good Tweet can launch a snowball effect. But this is another subject.
(1) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage
Show less(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect
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I think still some power is smoldering in pixel selling idea. I would love to see again something so irrational, especially in the current non-pixel web design based mostly on photos.
That’s why I decided to release the next version of the million dollar homepage. Let me know what you think about it : nextmdh[dot]com ? It is a tribute to Alex Tew and a charity project 😉
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