What's the point??

Merlin and I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately ... What's the point of all these pixel advertising sites? I mean - they're not pretty ... although, there is a bit of excitement around them. They're not targeted ... but there's tons of traffic coming to them. And they're not expensive - so, the ROI for an advertiser can be quite good.

But if they don't actually "DO ANYTHING" - then what's the point? Well, here's what we think they might be "doing":

Introducing people to websites that they never would have heard of before.

I've run across a site that sells an mp3 player / headset all-in-one (they call it 'cordless' - but really you just slip your memory into the headset and viola) ... then there was the site with the pictures of old boats -- I mean, what the heck is the point of that, right? Well, it had me lookin' at pictures for a full five or six minutes. Then there was pzizz -- a website that claims to be the "ultimate powernap solution". We even found a site that sells absinthe - the age-old alcohol that some of the Masters such as Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, and Toulouse-Lautrec have been known to embibe.

Seemingly a bunch of random shit, right?

Well, lets think about this for a second ... the pixel advertising sites are attracting "early adopters", right? (People that are into being the first kid on the block to know about something.) So, it stands to reason that some of these same early adopters (dare I say that they are the target market here?) ... some of the early adopters might stumble across the "next big thing" -- oh oh - that reminds me -- there was a site -- I dont' remember the name -- I remember clicking on "Even Monkeys Fall from Trees" - it was a DVD set being sold called "Book of Cool" or something like that - and it taught you all sorts of cool things like how to do basketball tricks, skateboard tricks, billiards, etc etc etc ... shows you all the cool tricks, teaches you how to do them .. pick what you want to learn about or just watch the tricks -- whatever you want. .. oh yes, there is it -- right under the Absinthe micro-ad.

Anyway - whew -- I digressed. The point here is -- one segment of what's working with the pixel advertising sites is that its accidentally targeted to early adopters across a multitude of subcultures - and therefore the requirement as an early adopter is to find cool new stuff. The sites with cool new stuff will find an audience within their respective subcultures ... early adopters and sneezers (as Seth Godin likes to call them) will pass the word to others about pzizz or book of cool on to the next wave of people and perhaps the little idea virus will spread.

Maybe PixelList.com should start a review site for the sites we discover through the pixel advertising sites instead of just the pixel advertising sites themselves ...

-- Harris

Review Site taking off

Well, the review site is really starting to take off, so we decided to start selling pixels there. We took the idea from Brad Fallon's site, really. (We're getting ton's of traffic from there by the way.)

We're not really used to driving traffic to websites with zero budget - but we've been doing a pretty good job with the Review Site. We're generally in the top 50,000 or so of Alexa with just trading links with other pixel advertising sites and a little press release action two weeks ago. We plan on putting another press release out this week - but we've also heard that a great way to get traffic is by writing articles and submitting them to "Article Hubs". We'll let you know how that goes once it gets going and give you the specifics of what we did.

Our original intention of setting this blog up was to talk about internet marketing and different ways to drive traffic to your website. We want to take the money we earn and test out various methods of paid advertising and tell you the results as well. Should be a fun learning process.

-- Harris

PS We're running a 4-for-1 sale while we ramp up. $50 buys you 4 blocks on PixelList.com *and* the top of the $500k Home Page as well. So - BUY SOME PIXELS ALREADY!

Bout time.

And finally, at long last, the pixels are selling. It's been a long time (well, 2 weeks since we started out in this whole pixel thing) so in reality 10 days from start to profit ain't too damn bad. People in normal (non-internet) businesses are happy if they are in the black after their first year. "HA!" I say, "HA" I freaking love the internet, I love it, love it, love it, love it.

Enough of that. Harris spent days pouring over php and other undescernable code, his eyes bugging out of his head. Finally, Harris couldn't take it anymore and we found Byron from Rent A Patch who did most of it for us. Apparently Byron is over in the UK working in a library during the day and moonlighting as a "super-coder" at night. "He emerges from the inky black alley behind the Beacon Street Library and speeds home in his Citroen to spend another night grappling with the pixel pages who are in such dire need of his super powers. Fueled only by cold coffee and lima beans he flails his mighty keyboard into the wee hours crushing all mySQL and pixel problems that stand in his path. What makes this cyber-vigilante risk carpal tunnel and blindness each night? For the love of the pixel, and only the pixel" So, if you see this masked man surfing past you in a flash of flaming pixels you will know that all is well and your path is safe.

In short, thanks Byron

~Merlin

Power to the Pixel!!!

Finally - the site is complete and bug free (knock on wood). Byron at rentapatch did one fix for me and it took me another night to get it all together - but it's 100% ready to go now. The microads are now all the appropriate color -- and behind the scenes, it's even easier than before to put the pixels on the board. Sold some ads today ... and got a mention from Brad Fallon for our review site. Thanks Brad! (In case you didn't know - Brad is author of Stomping the Search Engines and a bonafide SEO Guru).

Okay - gotta run (well, actually ... gotta sleep ... gotta wake up early to go to the gym.)

-- Harris

Easy Come, Easy Go
Damn - we just dropped down to number 6 on Google for "Pixel Advertising". That was fast. Guess its time to drop another press release and/or article out onto the world. Can't let the momentum simmer.

Merlin's still stuck in Colorado - I think the snow should melt off today and he can get out of his family's driveway finally. I should go on record and say that it's my fault that it snowed. You see, I'm a "snow buddha". I love snowboarding ... and every time I plan to go to a mountain, well ... it snows. Sometimes too much, actually. Sometimes too early to take advantage of it. But make no mistake -- if the mountain knows I'm coming - snow shall fall. So, watch out Whistler, BC - early December of this year -- you will see plenty of snow - with just enough time to let up and allow me to ride for a couple of days in perfect snowboarding conditions.

Ahh ... I could talk about Snowboarding all day, but this is a pixel site .. and even though Merlin thinks pixels are like snowflakes ... I must get back on the Pixel Path. We finally got our three pixel advertising sites up. Just click on 100k, 250k, or 500k above and you'll be taken there. We have some upcoming marketing tricks up our sleeve ... I want "in" on that Alexa Movers and Shakers list, people!!! So, buy some pixels from us now and beat the wave.

-- Harris

QuarterMillionDollarHomePage ranks high

We're ranked 8,041 in Alexa yesterday for QuarterMillionDollarHomePage.com!!!

Guys - Merlin and I have been gone for the last 5 days (he's still stuck in the snow in an early Colorado snow storm). We're just getting started and we're already seeing incredible growth here. This MicroAd / Pixel Advertising thing is just going crazy right now ...

I'm a little embarassed that we haven't had the time to put up any ads yet - we have some, of course - but as ya'll know - we're marketing guys - not programmers. Byron at RentaPatch has been super helpful -- he had most of it done and ready to go for as days ago - but Merlin and I haven't been able to get to it, yet. Too many Pixel Advertising Sites to deal with.

-- Harris

Snowflakes look just like pixels.

I'm on a little vacation visiting family in Colorado and of course the first snow of the season just has to hit the day I have to drive 80 miles to the airport for my flight. The flakes are flying as fast as the pixels are these days. Every time I hop online I have another 5 emails from new pixel sites asking me to review and post them on Pixel List. Don't worry guys, I'll get to you all in time. There are some really sweet new sites coming online and people seem to be getting smart and realizing that Alex Tew started something that will keep on growing as long as new fresh ideas grow along with it. This pixel industry is still just starting out and there are MILLIONS of dollars to be made by the people who come up with fresh, unique ideas. You can't just copy the original idea and expect to make it big, nope you're going to have to work at it. I know, I know - no one wants to have to think, sorry, too bad. Get to it and you just might be the next Million Pixel Man.

~Merlin

On top of Google

Holy Cow -- I just Googled "Pixel Advertising" and we show up in the first spot in organic search. This was no accident. Go look - our site was registered only one week ago and we're #1 in Google. Amazing, huh? If you'd like to know how we did it ... stay tuned ... because we eventually plan on revealing all of our secrets.

-Harris

On top of Google

Holy cow -- I just http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pixel+advertising" target="_blank">Googled "Pixel Advertising" and PixelList is #1 !!! Amazing what a properly written press release will do for you. Wanna know who wrote the release for us??? We plan on revealing all of our secrets. Stay tuned ...

-- Harris

The next contender ...

Congrats to Million Quarter Home Page for hitting the 10th spot on Alexa's movers & shakers! Way to go guys!!

- Harris

Well, that was fun -- we did the radio show -- got to talk about MillionDollarHomePage, PixelBay, good ol' Byron across the pond at RentaPatch, AdaLot, and of course our own site, PixelList.

(maybe a couple others too .. don't remember for sure ... podcast will be up soon ... gotta run - 11 month old baby wants to throw her cell phone on my keyboard again and again and again and again)

-- Harris

Well, wouldn't ya know it. We're going to be on a radio show in a few hours. They wanted to talk to some "experts" in the pixel industry and came to us ;-) Kinda exciting actually.... I did a few TV commercials when I was younger, but this will be my first radio appearance. As you can see in Harris's post we have finally gotten this designing/coding nightmare worked out. And I'm still reviewing about 10 new pixel homepages everyday, man the things are popping up fast.

Hmmmm......
I was just thinking about all the pixel pages and all the pixel ads that are being birthed (ewww birthed, bad mental image there). It's incredible how much money is being made for the site owners, but more importantly, for the advertisers. And this business has only been around for 5 or six weeks, wait another six months.

Ok, gotta go prep for my big radio debut. Umm..... guess I should change, umm.....no, get a haircut, umm......no, Well then, I guess I'm ready. We'll post a link to the podcast once it's up

~Merlin

Getting closer now -- good ol' Byron at Rentapatch helped me out in IM when he got home from work (said he'd be home at 17:30 GMT -- I'm in the US - had to do some conversions). Now its just a matter of some cutting and pasting and we'll be all set.

Also - I didn't wanna jinx this in my last blog -- but it looks like we're going to be on a radio show called The Profit Doctors in about an hour from now. Its on TanTalk1340 -- but will be up as a podcast shortly thereafter at Aardvark Abductions (the company that owns the show I guess).

-- Harris

The calm before the storm ...

We're already beginning to get a little bit of activity and we've only just begun. Merlin started putting up some great reviews over on PixelList and a few kind PixelMasters have put up an ad for us already.

We put out a press release this morning - and it's very quiet right now. We see that over 150 media outlets / websites have picked up the story ... and we got a phone call to do a radio show / podcast later today. (The name of the PodCast is "The Profit Doctors").

Merlin and I have literally looked at so many pixel sites now that we either wake up thinking about pixels or go to bed with pixel-plums dancing in our head ... or both. We described a small woman at the gym this morning as being "about 1024 pixels". It's pretty funny, really ... once this pixel stuff gets in your head, you just can't get it out. Its a meme of a different hue I suppose.

Here's something I realized today though ... MDHP's story hasn't even hit the United States yet. Alex has taken in over a quarter million dollars - and very few people even know about it.

Meanwhile - dumb and dumber designer over here (me and Merlin SUCK at webdesign) can't figure out how to get our pixel image map to redirect properly. So, we bought some php code that talks to a mysql database from RentaPatch for 50 pounds ($90 US) ... I thought it was going to take HOURS to figure out - and lo and behold - I got it up and running in like 15 minutes. (but the pixel-gremlins are still having their fun - I think our hosting company - 1and1 - might be too controlling of the database - so, we STILL aren't up with our $100k / $250k / and $500k pixel sites just yet.) The rentapatch guy is going to be home at 17:30 GMT (whatever the hell that translates to) and is going to help see if we can't figure it out or make a work-around. Super nice guy.

Okay - that's it for now ... I'm guessing by this time tomorrow we'll have some "MicroAds" up (that's what my friend over at PixelBay calls 'em anyway. I actually have a better name for them - but I'm going to wait a bit to make sure I go on record as the guy that coined the phrase.

Power to the Pixel!

Harris

Gotta keep 'em Pixellated ...

After days of setting up these websites, Merlin and I are going pixel-crazy trying to keep up with this phenomenom ... I see pixels everywhere now ... the bricks on my walls, city skylines, patterns in my carpet -- everywhere! We talk in a new language to each other - saying things like "Pixel on my brother", "Are you on the Pixel Path?" and we even sing "Ya gotta keep 'em pixellated" every once in a while. It's gotten to a point where my wife things we're nuts (although, she is the person who accidentally coined the phrase "Pixel Master" - which you'll notice in our contact section we use.)

This weekend, my wife and I were at a wedding this weekend and I was explaining this whole pixel thing to a table of wedding guests - and somehow my wife ended up betting me that if we make $20,000 with this, she'll sing "Ya gotta keep 'em Pixellated" for us -- I'll have to record that and put it up on the site somewhere when that happens.

Anyway, we're beginning to develop some relationships already with the owners of a couple of sites. The first one I'll tell you about is PixelBay. This site is run by a pretty serious player in the Internet Marketing scene. They have the ability to drive tons and tons of traffic to their site - in their first week, they already have already exceeded the growth of MDHP and have collected over $20,000 in pixel sales. Pretty excited to see a "real company" entering the fray already.

And the other site owner that I really like is at RentAPatch. He's offering free pixel space on his site and has already filled up nearly 40% of his "patch" space for sale. But, more interestingly, he's offering an easy-to-use software application that enables anyone to easily create their very own million pixel ad site. Talk about PIXEL POWER!!! (Oh, let me know if there's any side bets on how fast my wife will be singing "ya gotta keep 'em pixellated" ...

Power to the Pixel,
Harris

Back from Web Design Hell

Whew, it's been a hectic last few days. See, I am NOT a web designer by any means. I have LOTS of marketing experience and success, but this design stuff is just not my forte. I've spent the last 24 hours staring at code attepmting to just make the damn links work right.

So, my hats off to all you designers who can just throw up a new site willy nilly. But, that being said now comes the part that I like. Marketing, glorious marketing.

I've been waiting for a new marketing challenge for what seems like um.... a really long time I guess. And here it is. All that affiliate, search engine, email, banner ad, popup type stuff gets a little old after a while, gotta tell ya. But, now through the glory of the mighty pixel, Merlin again will rise up and conquer? demolish? devestate? - nah, how about just kick some advertising ass?
So get your pixels while we gottem to give and then go to the directory and find some more places to post your pixel ads, because the lil suckers are hot. Buy your space and post your ads and VAVOOM the traffic river runneth over.

Man, first thing I'm doing is hiring a full time web designer. This is killing me, my eyes are strained, my fingers are sore and my ass hurts from sitting to damn much. Ah well, all for the sake of the mighty pixel. All for you, my traffic hungry entrepreneur. The sacrifices I make just to give you more places to get more traffic, I'm telling ya- I'd better be on your Christmas card list from here on out.

~Merlin