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1000Tags, Brilliant or Stupid?

January 13, 2006 by 22 Comments

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the Million Dollar Homepage, which is essentially someone selling 1,000,000 pixels of advertising space on one page for $1 each. It’s been rather successful, selling out all 1,000,000 pixels and making a college student in Europe quite a bit of spare cash. Hundreds of copycat pixel-selling sites have sprouted up, with some having minor success, but nothing coming close to the original.

Naturally, there must be a Web 2.0 version of this, and thus 1000tags.com is born. As the title suggests, there are 1000 tags for sale, and the price changes based on if it’s exclusive and how big or colorful you make the tag display you buy. Some think it leads to more exciting things like tag cloud syndication tools, while others think it’s a smart idea that can’t be copied easily.

While I will admit it’s a somewhat clever twist on a original idea, I don’t think 1000Tags.com or the original Million Dollar Homepage are useful tools. The only reason to advertise on either to get some random traffic from the publicity. After the hype is over, what value will these sites have? Is anyone actually going to use them to find something? I don’t think so.

If you frame it as a neat sidenote that will make the owner some money, I’m perfectly okay with it. But some of the hype being thrown the way of the original Million Dollar Homepage is ridiculous, let’s hope things stay under control for people’s opinion on how great 1000Tags.com really is as an idea and useful website.

UPDATE: A commenter has let me know about their site TagSponsor.com which is the same idea, launched at a similar time. Due to the success of the Million Dollar Home Page, this doesn’t surprise me. I think TagSponsor’s challenge is to get the same buzz now to keep up, although the pricing looks cheaper which could help.

Filed Under: Random, Web 2.0
  • Alex Hamish

    Yeah but if you think the copst of the advertisement and then how long the advertising lasts its worth the gamble if only for a handful of visitors over the duration. For example I just brought pixels at http://www.milliopoundwebpage.net its just started so I got my advertisement for below £50, I pay more to advertise a week in my local paper.

  • http://www.tagsponsor.com Will O’Hara

    Hi,

    TagSponsor.com launched just after 1000tags and we do offer a similar service. However, all ours tags are exclusive and the prices are much more reasonable. This is by no means a copy of that site. It’s just coincidence that we’re both around at the same time. Drop by and take a look :)

    Will O’Hara

  • http://www.conversionrater.com/ Pat McCarthy

    Alex, you definitely have a point that the advertising is not expensive. It probably depends upon the site if the visitors you get will be qualified or not. It seems like everyone who visits the site is just coming to check it out for curiousity, and maybe you’re looking for a wide audience.

    Will, thanks for letting me know about TagSponsor.com. I’ll update the post with a mention. As someone who has a site of this type, do you plan on doing anything to market it to really help drive qualified traffic to visitors?

  • ARB

    Will, is it also a coincidence that you registered your domain name after the buzz on 1000tags was already out?

    If you start following up whenever you see 1000tags, you are a copycat and a follower. If you start with lies, then you’re a scammer trying to seize the opportunity.

    I don’t buy it.

  • http://sablog.com/ Shanti

    ARB – get over it.

    This is not a hugely innovative idea. Granted – million dollar homepage was a media coup.

    But anything after the original was just a copycat, maybe achieving 5% of its success, if lucky.

    $XXX.XX tag pages will be the same way. Maybe one will make $50k, who knows.

    Also, the tag pages won’t nearly garner the kind of media reaction that million dollar homepage did. Esp. since most MSM reporters don’t even know what a tag is, besides what’s on the underside on the neck of their T-Shirts.

  • http://www.tagsponsor.com Will O’Hara

    ARB,

    Just because the 1000tags site went live first, doesn’t automatically make my site a copycat. I had completed over 85% of the site when theirs was launched. The arrival of a competitor in the marketplace forced my hand and i had work quickly to launch TagSponsor. You seem very angry and suspicious, can you honestly say my site looks like a cheap, quickly built, copycat of 1000tags? No, a lot of time and effort has gone into tagsponsor, i’d appreciate it if you kept unhelpful and quite frankly, rude comments like that to yourself,

    Regards,

    Will O’Hara

  • http://www.web20milliondollarhomepage.com Srinivasan

    We have a simpler implementation, focussed on Web2.0 Companies, at
    The Web2.0 Million Dollar Homepage
    We envisage a page where each click opens up a new Web2.0 surprise.
    Do have a look, and let us know what you think.

  • http://www.conversionrater.com/ Pat McCarthy

    Hi Srinivasan,

    Thanks for dropping by. Well, I basically think you’re putting a tiny twist on an original idea, and my guess is it probably won’t get too far. The “pixel” pages aren’t very useful if you don’t have the buzz of the original, because they really don’t have any real use besides the novelty of it. So unless you can generate a ton of buzz, it’s going to be hard to make it hard to generate enough traffic to make advertisers get any good results. Good luck to you though!

  • Pingback: ITrade | grafisch design en hosting » 1000tags.com

  • http://www.tagterms.com tagterms

    if you think that 1000tags is an interesting concept, have you looked at http://www.tagterms.com yet? the world’s first tag based search engine/directory

    launched about a week after 1000tags, tagterms puts a whole new twist on the idea of using tag clouds as a UI to present data to the end user.

    check out the FAQ (http://www.tagterms.com/faq.html) for details

  • http://www.conversionrater.com/ Pat McCarthy

    Well, I just don’t see much value in a site that’s all advertising. Why would users come back to it and use it?

  • http://www.web20milliondollarhomepage.com Srinivasan

    Pat,

    Thanks for the inputs. However, I disagree with your conclusions regarding Pixel pages.

    We have a blog post titled “Do we really need a Web2.0 Million Dollar Homepage”? .

    Do have a look. we look forward to your comments.

  • http://www.conversionrater.com/ Pat McCarthy

    The problem is that the pages have no true use. They only get traffic due to curiosity, after that point they have no value just being a page of ads. Why would someone ever come back? And now that the idea has already been done with the original Million Dollar Homepage, the idea isn’t that interesting or unique anymore. Putting a tiny Web 2.0 twist on it doesn’t make it more interesting.

    In fact, the Web 2.0ish type of user probably is less curious or interested than the average web user who might think it’s neat.

    Good luck with it, but I just don’t think it has much value.

  • http://www.thewordad.com Gilu

    The idea is new and original, maybe if those with 1000tags try to bring the press’s attention, a new popular idea would born, so… the originality is all

    check a new original idea

  • http://www.thewordad.com Gilu

  • http://www.thewordad.com Gilu
  • http://www.conversionrater.com/ Pat McCarthy

    Hi Gilu,

    That’s not original at all. There are three ad networks I can think of right now that provide that service for content publishers. Making one page where you can buy such ads doesn’t really make it unique.

  • LinkSponsor
  • LinkSponsor

  • http://www.web2tags.com web2tags

    Web2.0tags is a commercial advertising website based on the Web2.0 concept of tagging and folksonomies. Our site allows website owners to create their own tag/folksonomie and link it to their website, in return driving traffic and exposure to the site. Web2.0tags offers competitive pricing as well as integrated categories and search features into our tagging system. This allows our visitors the ability to find specific tags based on interest, keywords, and category resulting in exposure to the tag creator’s website.

  • http://www.web2tags.com web2tags
  • http://bla.st/ blast

    A useful pixel advertising system? http://bla.st/