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Indeed, that's the little experiment. People want to post a message in a place it'll be seen, which is why they propose at baseball games or write on bathroom
by karzeem 18y ago
Indeed, that's the little experiment. People want to post a message in a place it'll be seen, which is why they propose at baseball games or write on bathroom walls. The question is finding a high-visibility forum.
The incentive here, at least at first, is that if there are less than 11 bidders, you don't pay anything. So in that case, the proposition is "Write on our front page for free," and the only loss is time. Beyond 11 bidders, the market sets the price.
- bprater 18y agoAgreed, you are missing an important element. There has to be an overriding reason why I should point my browser to your page or grab an RSS feed (assuming you have one). Can I win $100 a day by visiting your page, etc.? Find a hook.
- r7000 18y agoI could never figure out why people were visiting the million dollar home page either.
- nostrademons 18y agoBecause it was a new and interesting idea with lots of chutzpah. Million dollar homepage is the kind of idea that can only work once. Its draw was that it was novel - anyone who tries to copy it is no longer new, and so people don't care. Same goes for Leah Culver's etched laptop: she got sponsors because she got publicity, and she got publicity because what she was doing was new and interesting.
- r7000 18y agoYes, I agree. I meant that with a touch of sarcasm. This idea reminded me a little of that. I offer no opinion on any possible success.
- thaumaturgy 18y agoNo, I think they've got it right. All they need is one hit, one winning message, that'll drive traffic to their site. Once that happens, other people will want a chance to get some exposure there. The one thing I would suggest is that they add an RSS feed and some syndication tools, and broaden their distribution on the net.
- bprater 18y ago"Drive traffic" is still the problem. If 10 people a day visit and a person gets 2 hits out of getting their link on the page, they won't be back. If 10,000 people visited the page each day, and having a link on the page guaranteed 1,000 visitors, you give motivation for people to relist their link. Another part of the problem is targeting: bad marketing is all about trying to get everyone's eyeballs, great marketing is about selling the guy who is starving for Mexican food a taco. The current model is unsustainable.
- davidw 18y agoI tried it, and the minimum bid is 50 cents, which is 50 cents more than I'm willing to pay, so it's not "free".
- karzeem 18y agoWe make people check out at PayPal when they bid, so that we can automatically charge them later. If there are less than 11 bids when midnight ET rolls around, we never send that charge. I take it that we should word that more clearly on the bidding form instructions?
- davidw 18y agoThere's no way I'm going to go through all that and trust you to make it 'free', when, to be very blunt, it's barely worth my time in the first place. If I want to add links somewhere, I'll go comment on popular blogs.
- nonrecursive 18y agoUsually people use the word "automagically" to refer to something that the audience would be excited about.