When the million dollar homepage came out nearly three years ago, it hit tech news and mainstream news headlines repeatedly until peaking as one of the biggest internet trends of the time, generating hundreds if not thousands of copy-cat websites in hopes of similar success. This month’s crazy money-making idea comes from the mind of a German iPhone developer by the name of Armin Heinrich. If the million dollar homepage was any indication, copying these media-appeal innovations simply isn’t practical, but that’s not to say nothing can be gained from others’ experience.
The iPhone app that has hit the tech headlines this week is a simple app that came out on Wednesday. The app does one thing: it shows a gem on the screen resembling a ruby, providing a glimpse into a user’s wealth by the background image of their iPhone.
The peak of this story, however, hit just days after the app’s initial launch, when the LA Times managed to get in touch with the developer, who seemed confident that his iPhone application had its place in the market. He also took the time to acknowledge that eight people had purchased his application already, leaving him with over five thousand dollars once Apple’s 30% take is factored in. Unfortunately for Heinrich, Apple has since taken his application down with no reason. Supposedly it has something to do with the illegitimacy of such a service, and perhaps by the one American who accidentally purchased this application.
The importance behind this work of art, if you’re willing to consider it that, is again founded in its innovation and uniqueness. The media hype that this simple iPhone application received, and the media hype that the million dollar homepage received was entirely rooted in the “oddball” news corner. This is why copying these sites is not practical or useful, as without the media attention; it will never reach the levels that the original website did.
In this case, the uniqueness is rooted only in the novelty of the application, not the after-effects of such media frenzy. With sites such as Digg and YouTube, innovation brought them popularity and fame, while the community is what kept them. This community was built through the media hype and provided a reason to stay with the original sites beyond their initial success. This is where webmasters can begin to take notes.
Despite the number of Digg clones that exist, it is clear that many of them, save for maybe extremely specific niche clones, do not gain nearly the attraction or come anywhere near the popularity of the original Digg. This community, despite Digg’s community reputation, is what makes the site valuable to users, and more importantly, to advertisers. Having a controllable and steady community will invite advertisers who have a product relevant to your site, whereas having mostly guest traffic from various blogs and search engines, while certainly nice, just doesn’t give this appeal when selling advertising space.
Creating a community to foster a specific demographic and user group can be extremely advantageous. To create a website with a forum on violins and then get listed amongst tech news due to technical innovations is not very helpful. While the publicity certainly won’t hurt, it just isn’t the same as if your site was selling a JavaScript book you wrote. This should become glaringly obvious as you explore different niches and the potential advertising markets that are associated with them.
This leads us to an important conclusion. Advertising naturally through hype and frenzy can always help. Copying someone else’s idea simply isn’t going to get you there. By realizing this, you can focus on the two important aspects:
1. Innovating, thus being so innovative that people flock to your website; and
2. Taking advantage of this innovation to actually benefit you in your existing properties and to the bottom line.
Take the iPhone developer mentioned above, for example. Presumably he’s a normal developer who happened to have picked up the iPhone SDK. This means that this publicity is one more resume item and leads people to him, potentially securing clients or jobs in the future. In the mean time, he gains the cash reward from his idea. Whether or not this was his plan to begin with is irrelevant. The point is to figure out how to best take advantage of the situation presented to you.
This publicity is usually founded in things that seem stupid but in reality aren’t. Many of us have had ideas that we dismiss as being too ridiculous. How about the idea of running a Secret Santa online for the entire world to participate? It sounds ridiculous because it strays so far from what we think of when we think of Secret Santa (workplace team building, family get-togethers, close friends and small gifts, The Office 
), but still has some practical merit. As it is reaching out to everyone across the country, or even world, the chances of being picked up by a smaller newspaper or simply blogged about are fairly high simply for the number of people who want a chance to participate.
Now that the innovation has provided us with a basis of free publicity, it’s time to figure out how to capitalize on the potential publicity of media hype by growing a community. Perhaps groups of people could set up online Secret Santa’s by invite only for remote teams (discussion group moderators comes to mind) to participate within trust, thus building a community and purpose beyond the open free-for-all Secret Santa. Perhaps different countries could have their own. Maybe add a discussion group that involves discussing good gifts at various price ranges. These build a sense of community and keep people on your website, which is never a bad thing.
Beyond growth and community, obviously many webmasters are interested in the bottom line at the end of the day. At this point, you have to ask yourself where you could make money on the community that you have potentially grown. One thing that comes to mind is to create Amazon lists of products within price ranges (dollar items, under $5, under $10, under $25, etc.), for different demographics (gender, for workplace, for family, for friends, etc.), all with an Amazon referral ID, thus making you money when people buy through your lists.
These lists provide a service that is helpful to everyone, even those who aren’t participating in your global Secret Santa that gave you all the publicity, not because of hype, but because of genuine usefulness. Those who came through the hype will see how useful the lists are just like those who simply stumbled upon your website. This is one way that you can take advantage of free publicity and growing a community, ultimately finding ways to profit out of it. There are many other ways you could profit out of this venture as well as many others.
Strive for the innovative ideas and the publicity will follow suit. It’s always good to have a plan as to what you will do if you get Dugg, or featured on a popular blog, or featured on CNN. Following on the tails of other people’s success may be a good way to pick up some spare change, but it will never match the success levels attained by the original innovators. We all know we could think up something ridiculous – stop thinking about doing it and get out there and actually do it! Ask yourself this: what’s the worst that could happen?
Share With Others
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...
Leave a Reply