Pixel-ad sellers diversify - but do the ads actually work?
An update on those pixelpreneurs

London, 15 Apr 2006 | We've never shied away from covering the latest web innovations - especially the brave new world of pixel-advertising.

Back in March we saluted the efforts of a wave of 'pixelpreneurs' filling the web with their efforts to make millions by selling tiny portions of their websites for not very much money.

They were following in the footsteps of British student Alex Tew who made a fortune selling individual 'pixels' on his website.

It's worth noting at this point that none of these websites will actually sell you a single pixel, because on most modern displays a single pixel is almost too small to be seen and very tricky to click on. (For the record, a single red pixel looks like this: )

While commending pixel advertising websites such as buythemap, we also warned that the idea was getting rather old, and would run its course if webmasters wishing to make a fast buck didn't act quickly to bring new concepts to the market.

Two pixel advertising websites are now doing this. Ur-Country enables advertising buyers - and potential clickers - to hone in on their country of choice. It also offers a number of tiers of advertising to suit all markets: 'citizens', with personal websites, get a 10x10 block of pixels (which look like this: ) for, at the moment, no money at all.

As the website starts to take off, we presume they'll start charging for links.

Competing the in the same market as Ur-Country, The Million Link Project is offering an Open Directory Project-style interface to deliver targetted ads.

Both of the above solutions blend the new concept of pixel advertising, whose killer app is in allowing individuals to buy a space on the internet for very little money.

But we're still not convinced. After nearly 20 days on the internet, The Million Link Project is only 0.000033% - 33 links - down the long road towards its ambitious target. Ur-Country appears to be selling spaces at a faster rate, but has to live up to its promise of 'an emphasis on high quality rather than high volume links'.

And so, in order to assess the effictiveness of these websites, we've signed up for basic-level links on both of them. We've already got a pleasing amount of traffic from our Ur-Country link, and we're shortly to be added to The Million Link Project.

We'll report back in a month's time.