* How long does it take before the image is changed?
* Can we view previous images?
* Can you put a timer up that says image has been up for X minutes?
* If I want to change the picture and pay you and some does the same thing at the same time, but they clicked the submit button a few seconds after I did, then I'm gonna be a little pissed as I never saw my picture up there
* Counter that says Image viewed X times?
* Is there a minimum amount of time that the image stays up? (5 or 10 minutes?)
This comment is proof that any idea, no matter how simple, can always be feature-creeped.
Not that that stuff wouldn't be useful. But it would have been really easy to say that any one of these things was a 'must have' for a first implementation, and by the looks of it, is clearly not.
At first I thought this was a stupid idea, but then I keep checking to see if anyone had changed the image. Then I was curious and wanted to know the answers to the questions I posted. Maybe in the future =)
It might be cool if the user could add a link to the image. They'd get a sudden burst of hits. AND, make it so I can pay as much as I want and my picture will stay up until someone agrees to pay more. You'll make a fortune off of people with egos.
I actually thought of milliondollarhomepage.com looking at your site.
If the URL is more interesting, you might be on to something very interesting. If it catches on, people might buy themselves some media attention just by buying the image.
I feel bad but I'm interested in seeing if it works, whether or not people take notice or if they assume it was someone being a dick. Seems to have lasted 2 mins so far.
I came up with a similar idea a few years ago -- Who Wants First? -- which featured a giant, billboard-type text ad space at the top, in the first position. You could place your ad text there for $1, bumping down all the previous ads into smaller-sized ad spots. Fun idea, but never really took off. Hope yours has better luck!
I think you should be able to pay as much as you want. Each dollar you pay* = 1 minute-credit. So say you pay $50, you get 50 minutes. Someone then needs to outbid your remaining minute-credits to replace you.
Eg if you paid for 30 minutes ($30) but it has been up for 15 minutes, you have 15 minutes remaining, so someone has to bid $15 or more to replace you.
Once you get to 0 minutes left, your picture stays up until someone pays $1 or more to add their own minute-credits and replace you.
This 'decay' means that you'll always have people trying to snipe as soon as it's affordable, to get their pic up.
Have a timer underneath saying "5 minutes remaining..." to give people an idea of what they need to bid over to get their pic up.
(*The actual price suggested is just random to make it easy to explain. $1/minute is probably too much in reality)
Thanks everyone! It was exciting to see people use this thing.
As requested, here's a bunch of info about the project.
1. I made it in 4 hours during Fun Hours at my company.
2. It's a rails app, although main page is served by nginx, there is only one controller, with one action, using one view and one model :)
3. I submitted it to HN and Reddit. The latter community completely ignored it (1 upvote) due to bad name ("Please give me a dollar").
4. I used Reinvigorate to track live statistics. A very nice tool.
5. There were 2600 uniques and 6200 pageviews (for an app with only two pages, one of which is visible only after paypal). People were refreshing their browser, even though JS actually polls for a new image automatically.
6. I made $20. 8 of them were for ads.
7. One person paid $1 to post a shock image.
8. PayPal gives me emails, names and addresses of everyone who paid. I will not contact anybody.
9. Nobody loved the domain name, so I will reuse it!
10. NO, I will not add features to this fart app ;)
54 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 143 ms ] threadReminds me of both billboards and those $/pixel things people did in the nineties.
Exploiting curiosity like this is kind of a neat idea.
* Can we view previous images?
* Can you put a timer up that says image has been up for X minutes?
* If I want to change the picture and pay you and some does the same thing at the same time, but they clicked the submit button a few seconds after I did, then I'm gonna be a little pissed as I never saw my picture up there
* Counter that says Image viewed X times?
* Is there a minimum amount of time that the image stays up? (5 or 10 minutes?)
Not that that stuff wouldn't be useful. But it would have been really easy to say that any one of these things was a 'must have' for a first implementation, and by the looks of it, is clearly not.
edit: I paid another dollar and put up another notifo ad. :)
I'd think you'd also want to add some sort of decay on the threshold price to keep people spending.
I actually thought of milliondollarhomepage.com looking at your site.
If the URL is more interesting, you might be on to something very interesting. If it catches on, people might buy themselves some media attention just by buying the image.
Love your idea.
Eg if you paid for 30 minutes ($30) but it has been up for 15 minutes, you have 15 minutes remaining, so someone has to bid $15 or more to replace you.
Once you get to 0 minutes left, your picture stays up until someone pays $1 or more to add their own minute-credits and replace you.
This 'decay' means that you'll always have people trying to snipe as soon as it's affordable, to get their pic up.
Have a timer underneath saying "5 minutes remaining..." to give people an idea of what they need to bid over to get their pic up.
(*The actual price suggested is just random to make it easy to explain. $1/minute is probably too much in reality)
As requested, here's a bunch of info about the project.
1. I made it in 4 hours during Fun Hours at my company.
2. It's a rails app, although main page is served by nginx, there is only one controller, with one action, using one view and one model :)
3. I submitted it to HN and Reddit. The latter community completely ignored it (1 upvote) due to bad name ("Please give me a dollar").
4. I used Reinvigorate to track live statistics. A very nice tool.
5. There were 2600 uniques and 6200 pageviews (for an app with only two pages, one of which is visible only after paypal). People were refreshing their browser, even though JS actually polls for a new image automatically.
6. I made $20. 8 of them were for ads.
7. One person paid $1 to post a shock image.
8. PayPal gives me emails, names and addresses of everyone who paid. I will not contact anybody.
9. Nobody loved the domain name, so I will reuse it!
10. NO, I will not add features to this fart app ;)