I have come up with my own website system where I can offer websites at very good prices. An example is the sale of russian dvds.
As you can see, it's a very simple site and fulfills one major business goal: the sale of your merchandise.
If interested, please contact me at valeriy@triw.org and I might make a similar website for you. The cost will only be around $700.
Million dollar homepage
Why it worked only onceIf you haven't already heard about this website, just search for it on Google and you'll find it quickly.
I have some humble opinions about why this website worked only once to make money and why it will never work again.
Originality
The idea by itself is completely original. The creator of the website was just selling pixels where advertisements can be placed. This is very different from already existing advertising methods - the key to why it became so popular. I think that even clever hybrids of the idea will not earn money, such as selling advertisement words or characters on a website, just because they don't really push the boundary enough.
The audience
The targeted audience of the million dollar homepage was - marketers. Marketers are a breed of people who always look for places where a lot of people crowd (even if the crowd is other marketers). So, just saying that this page was receiving millions of visitors was enough to bring new curious marketers into the crowd.
The million dollar homepage also instantly offered a way to monetize on the visiting marketers, by allowing them to buy pixels. The curiosity of the crowd grew go strong that they could not resist to give up their dollars, and in many cases with great return on the advertising money spent!
The lesson
Be original! But also look for nice ways to quickly monetize your idea, because otherwise it might not earn anything.
Nostalgia
A few years back, I had to spend a long while in another country. This was actually a good experience for me. I got a chance to see a new culture, and interact with people who had completely different opinions about the world.
But the longer I lived away from home, the more I was missing it. Namely I was missing books, movies and music back from home. Unfortunately, none of it was popular enough to be found.
This gave me an idea. At that time, I would have paid much extra just to get some DVDs of new movies or a new book from one of my favorite authors, back from home.
If only someone organized a website with a service such as "Tell me what to send you from country X, and I'll find it".
Now that I'm back home, I did a bit of research and it turned out that mailing a DVD internationally from here, would cost $60. That's too expensive to make any profit for me.
However, maybe someone out there can find a way to materialize this idea, and make a new business.
But the longer I lived away from home, the more I was missing it. Namely I was missing books, movies and music back from home. Unfortunately, none of it was popular enough to be found.
This gave me an idea. At that time, I would have paid much extra just to get some DVDs of new movies or a new book from one of my favorite authors, back from home.
If only someone organized a website with a service such as "Tell me what to send you from country X, and I'll find it".
Now that I'm back home, I did a bit of research and it turned out that mailing a DVD internationally from here, would cost $60. That's too expensive to make any profit for me.
However, maybe someone out there can find a way to materialize this idea, and make a new business.
Pricing service
Shoppers spend a lot of time traveling between different stores, picking and choosing and comparing prices before making a major purchase.
A service that can help them is a pricing service that can be called by a SMS from a cell-phone or maybe a positioned station right inside the store. It may accept the UPC (Universal Product Code) of the unit the customer is interested in, and provide price information at several locations. A service like Froogle can be used to draw such prices from the internet.
The point about this is it would actually be really useful to the customer, and at a low fee (cost of the SMS). I know I would use something like this the next time I'm out checking out new TVs!
A service that can help them is a pricing service that can be called by a SMS from a cell-phone or maybe a positioned station right inside the store. It may accept the UPC (Universal Product Code) of the unit the customer is interested in, and provide price information at several locations. A service like Froogle can be used to draw such prices from the internet.
The point about this is it would actually be really useful to the customer, and at a low fee (cost of the SMS). I know I would use something like this the next time I'm out checking out new TVs!
Better interfaces
An idea I had some time ago was about popular website interfaces. Let's say I don't like how EBay or Google look, and I'm looking to find other ways to use those sites, but obviously such a service doesn't exist (at least I don't think it exists).
The idea is to make a new website - let's call it adapster.com. In this site, there would be panels to select which site you want to use. Imagine that the user clicked "Google". He is then shown an improved interface of Google, maybe with the user's search history, direct links to his Google accounts, etc. As an extra feature, it may be made possible to rearrange the page elements as the user wishes.
Other programmers out there might realize such a site would really be just a proxy - relaying communication between the user and the website.
I haven't really found a reason for why such a website should not be useful to people, and why it should not make money.
Good luck, and all comments are welcome!
The idea is to make a new website - let's call it adapster.com. In this site, there would be panels to select which site you want to use. Imagine that the user clicked "Google". He is then shown an improved interface of Google, maybe with the user's search history, direct links to his Google accounts, etc. As an extra feature, it may be made possible to rearrange the page elements as the user wishes.
Other programmers out there might realize such a site would really be just a proxy - relaying communication between the user and the website.
I haven't really found a reason for why such a website should not be useful to people, and why it should not make money.
Good luck, and all comments are welcome!
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