How did the idea of Million Dollar Homepage became a hit?
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How did the Million Dollar Homepage became a hit?
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@Michael Don't literally hijack my words in the question. Fixing grammatical and formatting issues are fine, but don't over do it. – Ashfame 13 years ago
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@Ashfame Like Wikipedia, this site is collaboratively edited. If you are not comfortable with the idea of your questions and answers being edited by other trusted users, this may not be the site for you. – Michael Pryor 13 years ago
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@Michael Like I said you are literally hijacking my words. Stop doing that. Being a mod doesn't make you a God. FYI, editing and hijacking are two different things and I am not ok with someone hijacking my words. This is disgusting! And I know how stackexchange network works, if it was not for me, you wouldn't have find me here. – Ashfame 13 years ago
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@Ashfame ok, I respect your opinion. You need to make sure your questions are objective and not soliciting a discussion. Don't ask 'What are your thoughts?' as a question. You're welcome to re-edit your question in your own words as long as it passes the bar of a question. Also, you shouldn't take it personally that someone edited your question. Once you post it, it becomes community property. Editing questions is meant to make them into something better. The alternative is to close or delete a poor question, and I'd rather not do that. – Michael Pryor 13 years ago
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I agree with Michael's edits, the original posting contains far too much emotive language in both the title and body. It also contains American specific words like "goofy" and "hype train". This is an international site, you shouldn't be using localized slang. – David Benson 13 years ago
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@Michael Thanks for the pointer, I will keep questions objective in nature. – Ashfame 13 years ago
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@David Points noted! Thanks. I am from India, I just got to know the word hype comes under slang. I will try not to use slang. – Ashfame 13 years ago
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@ashfame Also, you're welcome to participate here if you want (maybe it will help you understand where we're coming from). http://meta.answers.onstartups.com/questions/318/how-to-respond-to-users-who-get-offended-when-you-edit-their-questions Note: I'm not singling you out in that meta question, I'm trying to have a general discussion on how to deal with this problem for future new users as well. – Michael Pryor 13 years ago
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@David Those edits were mine, not Ashfame's. – Michael Pryor 13 years ago
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@Michael Thanks for pointing that out. I am totally cool with what you did now. – Ashfame 13 years ago
2 Answers
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V-I-R-A-L M-A-R-K-E-T-I-N-G
The idea was the first of its kind. It caught attention for its originality. It got traffic, the more traffic it got, the more attention it received from advertisers.
You can't create a new one and expect the same (or any) success, just as you cannot make a million dollars off of a new iFart like application.
Sometimes being there first and being original works. I am also pretty sure they knew the right people to show this to when they just started out so that it becomes viral...
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Even the creator of milliondollarhomepage.com has not been able to duplicate his success. Virality (is that a word? It should be...) gets presented in the world like it is something you can do by choice. If only that were so. No, going viral is an uncontrolled and uncontrollable thing. – Kenneth Vogt 13 years ago
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I believe this answers the question pretty well to what I wanted to know. Thanks @ron and @Kenneth – Ashfame 13 years ago
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I don't agree it's 100% uncontrolled. There's an element of luck about it, but a lot of it depends what it's about. A unique and original idea like this one, you can understand why people thought it was cool. The idea either needs to be creative genius or a really solid product or service that people actually want. That's what gets picked up in the end. – David Benson 13 years ago
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@David, I challenge you or anyone else in a very friendly fashion: prove it. Show me an example of any viral success that is not a one hit wonder. – Kenneth Vogt 13 years ago
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@Kenneth Vogt That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the ideas are either creatively brilliant or the product really solid and filling a real gap. In the case of creative brilliance it's subjective and much harder to quanitify what is good. It's also very hard to have a second, original, idea without being guided by the first, which is no longer original and very likely would not work again for that reason. – David Benson 13 years ago
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Don't forget about psychology. The feeling of being part of something bigger plays a role. Getting people together on a network just to hang out is becoming passe. Getting people together to contribute to something bigger than themselves, even if it is just a mosaic of internet ads/photos, is interesting, the same way a Rube Goldberg machine is interesting. The sense of continuity and togetherness is in fact a component of viral marketing.
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Good point there! – Ashfame 13 years ago
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