Re:The ASCII Million Dollar Page
by edd on Sunday August 16, 2009 @06:38AM
(#765948)
The poor thing about the actual million dollar homepage is the creator (a university student trying to make some money to pay of his student debt) then got DDOS attacked to oblivion and had to spend a large amount of the money trying to keep the site up. The DDOS attackers obviously knew he had come in to a large amount of money and held him to ransom.
Re:The ASCII Million Dollar Page
by idlewords on Sunday August 16, 2009 @10:06AM
(#766106)
I bet if he had seeded it to make it look like a few people had already paid, he might have made some sales by now, joke site or not.
I recently launched a website with a gatekeeping fee pegged to the number of users (fee goes up $0.001 per user) and it surprised me how many people assumed that I started by charging $0.00. Do you really want to be the first paying user of any service?
Re:The ASCII Million Dollar Page
by olefoo on Sunday August 16, 2009 @12:00PM
(#766223)
I like that idea, it combines 'act now while it's still cheap', with the idea that the site may not be as useful until it has a certain number of users, and thus it makes sense to charge less to early users.
Re:The ASCII Million Dollar Page
by sid on Sunday August 16, 2009 @04:52PM
(#766717)
40 now, seems like there is a 'Z' and an '@' there now :D
Seriously even if he makes 100K, heck 10K im going to label this guy as one of my idols LOL ...
Re:The ASCII Million Dollar Page
by jacquesm on Sunday August 16, 2009 @08:32AM
(#766014)
Oh, come on, you're just jealous ;)
I don't know how often this has been done again, the first time it was a pretty good thing though, one of those 'why didn't I think of that' things.
Makes you wonder though, there must be some other immensely viral idea that can make you money in a short time lurking somewhere waiting to be discovered.
Re:The ASCII Million Dollar Page
by TweedHeads on Sunday August 16, 2009 @08:56AM
(#766039)
I was one of the many that said to myself "why didn't I think of that" the first time.
Not this time.
I'll give you one original idea to make you instant millionaire on the web.
- Start with a thousand dollars
- Every week, ask the wisdom of crowds for a way to double that purchasing, reselling, investing in anything the majority decides.
- Repeat ten times till you get to a million dollars.
- Keep the crowds amused with your vicissitudes in a daily blog.
- Profit!
Remember the red-paper-clip guy? something like that but the audience decides what to do with the money, and the whole intent is to double it every time.
Show the world we can be millionaires by investing wisely following the wisdom of crowds.
For example, first week buy $200 t-shirts for $5 and resell them for $10.
Second week, buy an old car for $2000 and resell it for $4000.
Those are just stupid examples, the audience should decide wiser.
Re:The ASCII Million Dollar Page
by jacquesm on Sunday August 16, 2009 @09:01AM
(#766042)
I challenge you to execute your idea :)
It's a good one but I can see a pitfall:
You might buy something that you find is unsellable, killing momentum.
A friend of mine - Joyce - had a good idea and put it in to practice, it was called jam-trading.
In the Netherlands the traffic jams are terrible and people end up next to each other, often for long times.
So she devised this game (not without danger to passing motorcycles), take anything from your car and try to trade it with the people next to you for something that you value more.
When the cars move again you get parked next to your 'next victim', rinse & repeat.
They started out with a fairly squishy apple (the food kind, not the digital kind), and managed to trade it all the way up to a notebook and a pretty neat pen over a stretch of about 5 kilometers.
Re:The ASCII Million Dollar Page
by TweedHeads on Sunday August 16, 2009 @09:19AM
(#766060)
"You might buy something that you find is unsellable, killing momentum."
You can't allow that to happen, if you do you fail at the game.
You have to study all submitted options and pick the best according to all variables involved, time included.
If you get enough publicity perhaps Mercedes will give you a car for half the price so you can sell it quick, going from 50k to 100k in days. Or any other sponsors, Rolex may help you jump from 5K to 10K. Harley-Davidson from 10K to 20k, and so on.
Free publicity for the seller and for the buyer if they choose so.
Re:The ASCII Million Dollar Page
by edw519 on Sunday August 16, 2009 @09:46AM
(#766084)
Here's a simple idea to make you an instant thousandaire and you don't even need a computer...
Purchase a mailing list of 4,096 football bettors.
Then start mailing postcards every week proclaiming that you have a system and a newsletter absolutely positively guaranteeing at least one "Lock of the Week".
Week 1 - Mail a postcard to 2,048 selecting the Tennessee Titans as the "Lock of the Week". Mail the other 2,048 a postcard selecting the Buffalo Bills as the "Lock of the Week". Keep only the 2,048 names whose team actually won.
Week 2 - Mail 1,024 postcards with one "Lock of the Week" and 1,024 with the other team as the "Lock of the Week".
Repeat for 3 more weeks.
By the time the season starts, you will have mailed 5 consecutive correct "Locks of the Week" to 128 bettors. The probability of this was (.5)^5 or .03125. Damn, you're good!
Now sell those 128 bettors your Absolutely Positively Guaranteed "Lock of the Week" Newsletter for $1,000 but only if they buy before Sunday.
If half the bettors buy your newsletter then your income will be $64,000 with a printing and mailing cost of less than $2,000. Not bad.
Good luck with that ;)
For those who aren't familiar with it, it's a spoof of this page: http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/
Which although seems pretty pointless, got a ton of publicity a while ago.
EDIT: and apparently actually made its author a million dollars!
I recently launched a website with a gatekeeping fee pegged to the number of users (fee goes up $0.001 per user) and it surprised me how many people assumed that I started by charging $0.00. Do you really want to be the first paying user of any service?
Inspired by yourworldoftext.appspot.com ?
Fail.
I don't know how often this has been done again, the first time it was a pretty good thing though, one of those 'why didn't I think of that' things.
Makes you wonder though, there must be some other immensely viral idea that can make you money in a short time lurking somewhere waiting to be discovered.
It would help if he made it readable though...
Not this time.
I'll give you one original idea to make you instant millionaire on the web.
- Start with a thousand dollars
- Every week, ask the wisdom of crowds for a way to double that purchasing, reselling, investing in anything the majority decides.
- Repeat ten times till you get to a million dollars.
- Keep the crowds amused with your vicissitudes in a daily blog.
- Profit!
Remember the red-paper-clip guy? something like that but the audience decides what to do with the money, and the whole intent is to double it every time.
Show the world we can be millionaires by investing wisely following the wisdom of crowds.
For example, first week buy $200 t-shirts for $5 and resell them for $10.
Second week, buy an old car for $2000 and resell it for $4000.
Those are just stupid examples, the audience should decide wiser.
Imagination is all you need to be a millionaire.
And originality...
It's a good one but I can see a pitfall:
You might buy something that you find is unsellable, killing momentum.
A friend of mine - Joyce - had a good idea and put it in to practice, it was called jam-trading.
In the Netherlands the traffic jams are terrible and people end up next to each other, often for long times.
So she devised this game (not without danger to passing motorcycles), take anything from your car and try to trade it with the people next to you for something that you value more.
When the cars move again you get parked next to your 'next victim', rinse & repeat.
They started out with a fairly squishy apple (the food kind, not the digital kind), and managed to trade it all the way up to a notebook and a pretty neat pen over a stretch of about 5 kilometers.
A 1:20 fold increase in value or so.
Not bad for a simple idea...
You can't allow that to happen, if you do you fail at the game.
You have to study all submitted options and pick the best according to all variables involved, time included.
If you get enough publicity perhaps Mercedes will give you a car for half the price so you can sell it quick, going from 50k to 100k in days. Or any other sponsors, Rolex may help you jump from 5K to 10K. Harley-Davidson from 10K to 20k, and so on.
Free publicity for the seller and for the buyer if they choose so.
Luck may be on your side...
"Beware of people giving you advice that they themselves do not follow".
I figure if you tell people how to go and make a million you had better made a few of those yourself.
Purchase a mailing list of 4,096 football bettors.
Then start mailing postcards every week proclaiming that you have a system and a newsletter absolutely positively guaranteeing at least one "Lock of the Week".
Week 1 - Mail a postcard to 2,048 selecting the Tennessee Titans as the "Lock of the Week". Mail the other 2,048 a postcard selecting the Buffalo Bills as the "Lock of the Week". Keep only the 2,048 names whose team actually won.
Week 2 - Mail 1,024 postcards with one "Lock of the Week" and 1,024 with the other team as the "Lock of the Week".
Repeat for 3 more weeks.
By the time the season starts, you will have mailed 5 consecutive correct "Locks of the Week" to 128 bettors. The probability of this was (.5)^5 or .03125. Damn, you're good!
Now sell those 128 bettors your Absolutely Positively Guaranteed "Lock of the Week" Newsletter for $1,000 but only if they buy before Sunday.
If half the bettors buy your newsletter then your income will be $64,000 with a printing and mailing cost of less than $2,000. Not bad.
Then go to the last investor with an investment proposal for a lot of $ and disappear into the sunset with the loot :)