Founder of the Million Dollar Homepage Should Send a Royalty
Check To Digg.com and Its Members
The phenomena of Alex Tew and the pixel site,
Milliondollarhomepage.com, could be attributed in large part to
what many call "The Digg Effect." If you are heavily involved in
the tech world, you probably know what that means. If not, here
is a brief primer. Digg.com is a new media site where the
members post and vote on unique stories that they find on the
Internet. The site itself is about a year old but already has
close to 100,000 members, and it is visited by over a million
people each day to get their daily dose of unique news.
The Digg Effect occurs when a particular story gains enough
votes (members deem the story as newsworthy through voting) and
is promoted to the homepage. When this happens, look out. If an
article moves up to the Digg homepage, it can cause tens of
thousands of visitors to arrive at the Web site where the
original article or news account was posted. The Digg Effect has
been known to crash Web sites within hours of story being posted
on Digg.
Now, how does this apply to Alex Tew, and the
Milliondollarhomepage.com? Tew created an odd looking site that
sold pixels, which are about the size of a period, for a dollar
a piece. His goal was to raise enough money to pay for college.
After selling a small number of pixels to friends and some
companies he knew, Alex paid for a press release to be
distributed. Lucky for Alex, a Digger (a term used for a
Digg.com member) posted the press release on Digg.com. Within
hours the story was promoted on the homepage of Digg.com, and
Tew's site was flooded by an estimated 40,000 visitors during
the ensuing hours.
If this was the end of the story, Alex probably would not have
sold all one million pixels in less than five months. This story
then took a twist that sealed Tew's fate and paved the way for
his ultimate success.
Here's how it happens. If a Web site is relatively new, like
Alex Tew's site was, The Digg Effect can have far reaching
results because of the policies of another site owned by
Amazon.com called Alexa. Currently, there are over 10 million
people who have downloaded the Alexa tool bar which assists the
site in ranking Web sites across the globe in terms of Web site
traffic. The Alexa homepage also has a section within it aptly
called "Movers and Shakers" which catalogs the five Web sites
that have the most traffic growth worldwide.
When Milliondollarhomepage.com was deluged with tens of
thousands of visitors from Digg.com, during the second week of
September 2005, the site flew up the Alexa rankings and
subsequently reached the "Movers and Shakers" section on Alexa's
homepage. This exposed the Milliondollarhomepage.com to
literally millions of eyeballs who visit Alexa each day.
A careful analysis was done to determine "who" the advertisers
were who initially bought pixels from Tew's site. The answer was
quite revelatory. Many of the advertisers were tech related
companies, who matched the profile of many Digg.com and Alexa
members. Many of the initial advertisers were also bloggers who
also match the demographics of Digg.com and Alexa.
Once Tew's site reached $50,000 to $60,000 in sales, just after
the The Digg Effect took place, the mainstream media published
the story and took care of the rest of Milliondollarhomepages's
free advertising needs. As is the case with many unique stories,
follow up articles were quickly published.
Just as writers should include attribution for the work of other
writers in their own published works if included in a given
piece, it would be nice if Alex Tew were to at least acknowledge
the contribution of the Digg members who set off the series of
events that have enriched him. Try as we might, we never found
any discussion of The Digg Effect nor the roll Alexa played in
the success of Tew's site in any article or news show where Tew
was interviewed.
The place that luck and timing takes in the success of certain
businesses and people's lives cannot be underestimated. Did Alex
develop his strategy knowing that some Digger would post his
press release on this democratic media site? Did he envision
what would happen with Alexa soon thereafter? If he did, then we
can truly call Tew's accomplishment a work of genius. If not,
maybe he should take a moment and say thanks to the world of
Digg.com. Perhaps he isn't even aware of the events described
above, and how they shaped his life. Maybe some enterprising
reporter should ask.
Drew Graef Contributing Writer Press Direct International