Nickels for Katrina (nickelsforkatrina.org)

Back on the Radar...brrreeeport?

2006-02-18T02:21:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot of talk recently about this brrreeeport thing...

Traffic has been slow to NFK ever since the pixels fad died down but let's see if this does anything to bring more people to the blog!

-Steve-

WSJ

2006-01-10T06:03:00.000-08:00

We got a nice mention in the Wall Street Journal today. Alex Tew is auctioning off the last 1000 pixels of the Million Dollar Homepage and the author mentioned some of the other pixel sites. If you would like to support the cause, please donate as little as $5 to help.

-Steve-

Bidders Vie to Purchase
Last Web-Screen Sections;
Copycat Sites Now Abound
January 10, 2006; Page B8

In late November, this column talked about Alex Tew, a 21-year-old British man who, in a quest to fund his university studies, had arrived at the seemingly outlandish idea of creating a Web site and selling advertising in the form of "pixels" -- the simplest graphical denominator of a computer screen -- for a buck each. His goal: one million dollars.

What made the story noteworthy then was that Mr. Tew had already passed the halfway mark despite having no target audience or even the slightest bit of brand recognition. As of tomorrow, Mr. Tew could not only reach his million-dollar goal, he could surpass it by auctioning off the last 1,000 pixels for www.milliondollarhomepage.com on eBay. Further, Mr. Tew's business model has inspired hundreds, perhaps thousands, of copycat sites angling to find a new twist on pixel sales for whatever their needs may be.

Alex Tew, creator of milliondollarhomepage.com, and his father, Malcolm Tew, pictured the weekend before Alex's last pixels are auctioned on eBay.

As an entrepreneurial venture, Mr. Tew's stands out given his young age, global influence and quick return on an estimated $40,000 investment to host and publicize the site. On Aug. 26, Mr. Tew launched his home page and divided the screen into 10,000 small squares of 100 pixels each. He sold pixels for $1 each, with a minimum order of 100 pixels and promised to keep the page alive for at least five years. In each space, buyers could put a graphical ad of their choosing, linking it to their own site. Today the home page resembles a cluttered collage of ads in various shapes and colors.

Internet Celebrity

Meantime, Mr. Tew himself has taken on celebrity status in the Internet community. World-wide solicitations have swamped his email in-box; he says there are currently 10,000-plus unanswered messages soliciting him for everything from money and business advice to job positions. Getty Images, which provides film and photo images to media outlets and others, just conducted a portrait session with Mr. Tew and his parents in Cricklade, England.

In fact, all the attention has persuaded Mr. Tew to postpone his university studies -- an ironic turn of events given that school was the original impetus for his project.

"I never expected the site to reach the level of success it has done," he writes in an email. "But I can't see how I can realistically continue my studies in the immediate future -- due to the sheer scale of interest in my site, and all the new opportunities that have presented themselves as a result. There just isn't time now." He says he will return to school in September.

By the end of 2005, Mr. Tew had sold 999,000 pixels and demand outstripped supply for the last thousand. On Dec. 30, the page had one million unique visitors and Mr. Tew's server almost died, he says, forcing him to temporarily suspend order taking. Giddy prospective buyers pushed him to open a second page, but Mr. Tew had pledged to close the page when his goal of one million dollars was reached in order to protect its originality.

Final Auction

So over the New Year, Mr. Tew decided to do what any calculating businessman might: He put the last 1,000 pixels up for sale on eBay. The auction ends tomorrow at 1:42 p.m. EST; as of 6 p.m. last night, the highest offer from a pool of bidders handpicked by Mr. Tew was $160,109.09. He expects to net about $650,000 to $700,000 after costs, taxes and a donation he plans to give to The Prince's Trust, a U.K. charity for youth that once helped him.

Mr. Tew's efforts benefited from newness, shrewd marketing and the Internet's lightning-speed word of mouth. After first persuading his friends and family to buy pixels to make the page seem legitimate, he then began touting his site, and himself, to bloggers, who directed traffic Mr. Tew's way. The media in Britain picked up on his venture, fueling more visitors.

In mid-September, Mr. Tew's Web site landed on the "Movers & Shakers" feature of Alexa.com, which ranks the world's Web sites by the number of people who visit them. Marketing executives often troll Alexa.com, which is owned by Amazon.com, to check out what's hot and what's not, and at one point Mr. Tew's site reached Alexa's No. 2 spot. That brought in a new wave of advertisers. In October, a U.S. publicist named Imal Wagner contacted him about penning his life story; he declined but hired her to help him with a U.S. media tour.

Pixel Mania

The attention inspired rival sites. One attractive 22-year-old Siberian emergency worker has posted her own black-and-white photo on a home page; as people buy pixels on www.presentmecolor.com the image metamorphoses to color. At www.boxofstars.com two filmmakers are selling digital "stars" -- orbs of light of various hues and size that bounce about the home page and link to other sites -- to raise $50,000 and finance their picture. In a marriage of online and outdoor advertising, www.stickermyhummer.com encourages buyers to purchase ads on an online picture of the body of a Hummer H2; when that's filled the site's owner, a California State University student promises he'll buy a real one and wrap it in a graphical composite of the ads. There are charity sites, sites devoted to erotica, and plain-vanilla financial Web sites all using pixels to raise funds. An Indiana University student has even launched a parody site called www.trumpingalex.com, complete with a fake image of Mr. Tew sporting Donald Trump-esque hair.

While none of these seem to have replicated Mr. Tew's success, and it's unclear if they ever will, the sheer volume of attempts and creative juice behind them paints an interesting picture of collective online entrepreneurship around the globe. And at the very least, it suggests there will be an eventual shakeout of what works, and what doesn't. For instance, one site, www.worldofpersia.com, targets a single ethnic group and purports to have sold 1,900 pixels in two days. Two Carnegie Mellon students started www.nickelsforkatrina.org to raise money for hurricane victims.

Meantime, people are tweaking their pages' graphical elements to stand out: A Frenchman launched www.monpremiermillion.com where people place ads on a map of his homeland and www.yournameonthemoon.com solicits people to post missives on a lunar image.

Currently, Mr. Tew is holed up at home in Cricklade with his mom and dad, monitoring his auction on a 17-inch Hewlett-Packard laptop from his parents' living room and sleeping from 5 a.m. till 9 a.m. to keep up with U.S. time zones. His folks screen his calls -- their son's numbers got posted on the Internet -- and siblings helped sort through the last round of orders. Mr. Tew says he paid them.

Says his 58-year-old dad, Malcolm Tew: "Alexander has always had lots and lots of ideas, some good and some not so good. This is certainly the most, ah, fruitful."

Write to Gwendolyn Bounds at wendy.bounds@wsj.com

in the paper today

2005-11-25T18:41:00.000-08:00

We got written up today in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05329/611718.stm

it's been a while...

2005-11-22T08:08:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the sparse posting. The last couple weeks at school have been pretty busy and we haven't had much time to work on the site. Our official count is up to $2,555 and we're trying to drive some more traffic in the coming weeks.

The group I went to Mississippi with is following up with the people we helped out and we will be presenting a report on our trip to the university. I will have an update on this in a week or so.

There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today about the pixels phenomenon. Unfortunately, they didn't mention us but it sheds some light on the wave of interest around such an arbitrary thing.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113261806930503580.html?mod=technology_main_promo_right

Pipe Dream
How Selling Pixels May Yield a Million Bucks
November 22, 2005; Page B1

It was just a few months ago that 21-year-old Alex Tew of Great Britain was stumped about how to pay for college. He'd filled a notebook with ideas before jotting down this simple, if rather audacious, query to himself: How Can I Become a Millionaire?

In the annals of entrepreneurship, what followed is an instructional tale of how a brainstorm, coupled with the Internet's powerful word-of-mouth culture, can set a trend in motion with lightning speed. Mr. Tew says his strategy was to find an idea simple to understand and cheap to set up, with a catchy name that would garner attention online, where he gained experience from having free-lanced as a Web designer for a few years.

Ultimately, his solution amounted to making money via Internet advertising -- but with a twist. Instead of selling banner ads, text links or splashy videolike ads that fill a screen, Mr. Tew opted to hawk the simplest graphical denominator of a computer screen: the pixel. A pixel is a tiny dot of light and color, and each screen has tens of thousands of them.

Mr. Tew created a home page, www.milliondollarhomepage.com, where he divided the screen into 10,000 small squares of 100 pixels each. His plan: to sell the pixels for $1 a piece, with a minimum order of 100 pixels. In each space, buyers could put a graphical ad of their choosing that links to their own site when clicked on. The end result is a cluttered collage of ads in various shapes and colors all amassed on a single digital billboard. (Mr. Tew doesn't charge his advertisers anything when a visitor clicks on the ads.)

Mr. Tew pledged to keep the site up for at least five years and to close the page when his goal of one million dollars was reached. "I had to think big," he says.

The notion seemed absurd. Who would want to advertise on an unknown site that had no target audience, no track record of attracting visitors or even the slightest brand recognition?

But as with many gimmicks, its newness gave it legs, as did Mr. Tew's shrewd marketing. He first roped his friends and family into buying pixels and placing ads to make the page seem legitimate. He then began touting his site, and himself, to bloggers, who wrote about his crazy idea and linked to the site, which directed traffic his way. The media in Britain picked up on his efforts, fueling more visitors.

Within two weeks of the site's Aug. 26 launch Mr. Tew says he sold $40,000 in ads. More important, the traffic numbers started gaining attention among the U.S. Internet community.

Since its launch, the site has received a total of about 1.5 million unique visitors. In mid-September, it landed on the "Movers & Shakers" feature of Alexa.com, which ranks the world's Web sites by the number of people who visit them. Marketing executives often troll Alexa.com, which is owned by Amazon.com, to check out what's hot and what's not, and at one point Mr. Tew's site reached Alexa's No. 2 spot.

Currently, the site gets 600,000 to 700,000 unique visitors a month. As of yesterday evening, Mr. Tew said he was $623,800 toward his goal, more than enough to pay for college and earmark some cash for his next entrepreneurial venture, he says. (He keeps a running tally of his sales on the Web site, and though the figure can't be independently verified, screenshots emailed by Mr. Tew of his PayPal and other checkout accounts appear to support his claim.)

While there's also no way of knowing for sure whether Mr. Tew is the first entrepreneur to sell pixels, the idea was new enough that it felt that way to onlookers.

"I was like, 'What's this?' " says Daniel Khesin, vice president of marketing at DS Laboratories Inc., a skin-care company in Lake Success, N.Y. After examining Mr. Tew's site, he says: "There was nothing inherently special about the page, but it was very obvious to us that at the very least, buying some pixels would be a good idea for the sheer number of visitors he was getting."

DS Laboratories purchased 800 pixels. Almost overnight, he says, traffic surged at the company's Web site by twentyfold, and all of the increase came from milliondollarhomepage.com. More impressive, he says, sales by Internet companies that DS Laboratories' site links to jumped almost 50% within a week of the ad going up.

"Our skepticism was that this is untargeted traffic," Mr. Khesin says. "But this advertising has definitely paid for itself many times forward. And unlike banner advertising where it goes away, people will always know where to find it to go back and purchase more products."

Similarly, Chris Magras, president Evisions Marketing Inc. in Tempe, Ariz., which helps Web sites get higher rankings on search services, also noted milliondollarhomepage.com's movement on Alexa.com. "Some people would say it's a bad idea, some would say it's a good one. All I know is that it was generating interest," Mr. Magras says.

Evisions bought 6,400 pixels and its ad went up on a Friday. The following Monday morning, Evisions was getting 2,000 more unique visitors to its home page, all linked directly from milliondollarhomepage.com. The number of leads, or visitors filling out personal information on the Evisions site, jumped to 300 a day from 100.

"It was quality traffic," Mr. Magras says. "It was definitely the biggest payoff for a one-stop ad buy we've ever had." He adds that the company is still getting 800 to 1,000 new visitors daily from Mr. Tew's site.

Copycats popped up almost immediately; now there are hundreds of Web sites selling pixels, some of them directly crediting Mr. Tew -- and even linking to his site. Some advertisers have put out press releases touting their alliances with Mr. Tew's site, further helping spike his traffic.

The risk, of course, is that as the original pixel concept gets mimicked, it will suffer from brand dilution and become a less compelling a business model. What's more, as milliondollarhomepage.com has filled up, it's become harder for advertisers to stand out amid a busy screen with messages ranging from "CasinoScams" and "Free Ringtones" to "Jesus" and "Hypnosis"; the smallest ad spaces, at 100-pixels square, are nearly indecipherable at this point.

Whether Mr. Tew reaches a million dollars remains to be seen. He readily notes that he'd never do another site like the original. Now, he says, "the copycats are all competing with each other."

One is Moneypants.com, a personal finance Web site geared toward women that says it has 600 members and has collected $4,500 over the last few weeks from its own pixel "Dream Page" -- a decent chunk of change for a nascent enterprise.

"It's very compelling," says MoneyPants Chief Executive Komal Bhojwani. "We don't have to end up going the investor route, which might require us to make changes to the business that we don't want to make. And we didn't have to get into debt by borrowing from a bank. We are generating revenue and not expenses."

One advertiser, Cherryl Weaver, says she's seen a 13% jump in traffic to her real estate Web site, www.hotlaneighborhoods.com, from the 1,500 MoneyPants.com pixels she bought. "As long as it's a strategic alliance, it makes sense," Ms. Weaver says, alluding to the affinity between a personal-finance site and real estate. "Would I team up with McDonald's if they did a dream page? No."

Meantime, James Thomson, a Web designer in Branson, Mo., says he's wiped out $30,000 in personal debt accumulated after the dot-come bust with his site, www.millionpennyhomepage.com, by selling pixels by the penny, instead of the dollar. Yesterday, he had only $974 left to go before reaching his goal of $10,000.

And Christian Abad, president of Accessible Computing Inc. in Charlotte, N.C., is trying to lure new clients to his pixel page, called www.pixelads4all.com, by giving them a 50% discount off their pixel purchases. Sales have been slow, but he remains optimistic about the overall concept and has even purchased 11 domain names in anticipation of a future in pixel advertising. Among them: pixelads4shopping.com and pixelads4porn.com.

For his part, Mr. Tew says he wants to keep milliondollarhomepage.com online "forever." If and when a million pixels are sold, he says he'll leave the page frozen in time, no changes allowed, no new buyers permitted. His ultimate goal is as lofty as the original concept: He hopes his site will be like a time capsule showing "what's possible on the Internet" -- an iconic image that he imagines "one day might be a piece of art in a museum."

Write to Gwendolyn Bounds at wendy.bounds@wsj.com

week in review

2005-10-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

This week was a pretty positive week for us. Getting listed on the Blogs of Note was great for our traffic and we've been logging about 300 uniques per day to the main site. We've broken $2275 and we should have it all updated by tonight.

Few ideas being tossed around right now...One of them brought to our attention has been broadening the scope of where we put our donations. Although Katrina needs financial help, there are other natural disasters occuring in the US and around the world. All of the money would still got the Red Cross, but we would donate it into different hurricane reliefs such as Wilma, Rita and the Earthquakes in Pakistan. Please post some comments in the forums and let us know what you think. Any name change ideas?

Thank you to everyone who has been buying up pixels. Your support is appreciated. We've been getting some interesting donors from sites such as Save The Ta-Tas and Doombuggies. Wouldn't it be funny if someone bought up pixels to propose...like on the megatron at a baseball game?

-Steve and Keith-

saturday afternoon and final thoughts on the weekend...

2005-10-26T12:50:00.000-07:00

For the final leg of our time in Mississippi we were supposed to be working on projects further south, towards New Orleans. Because of how day-to-day things happen, however, these projects were unable to happen. On our way back I got some pictures of the damage that is still evident in the area.

The golden arches - just about all of the street signs were blown out like this. It is shocking to see miles of commercial areas with businesses that still have not fully recovered from the disaster.

We passed by a CVS that was operating out of a trailer. It is amazing that when people need something like medicine, quick and dirty solutions are thrown up to fill that need.

The weekend spent in Mississippi was a great experience. In the short time that we were there, we were able to make an impact. Although not all of the projects we lined up happened as planned, just being able to help others in need made the trip worth it. A student group on campus, Alternative Break will be making a follow-up trip to the region in the beginning of January.

On a side note, none of the money for this trip came out of NickelsForKatrina.org. This was a trip organized by the Division of Student Affairs at Carnegie Mellon University. With the generous help of Shernell Smith and Rowshawn Palmer, we were able to get it together on such short notice.

Thank you to everyone who has been reading, commenting, donating and putting up our banner. Your support is appreciated.

-Steve and Keith-

Free Cellphones for Katrina Victims

2005-10-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

Found this on on Gizmodo today...an interesting idea.

Free Cellphones for Katrina Victims: "The FCC has approved a plan by the feds to give all Katrina evacuees free cellphones with 300 minutes of talk time. Now I'm sure they're not handing out pink RAZRs to those in need so it's not an issue of logistics. So when did Katrina happen? Oh right, almost 2 months ago. I'm sure if someone needed a cellphone, they'd have it by now. What about people affected by more recent hurricanes like Wilma? There's trouble in paradise down in Floridia and I'm sure they could use those hot Cingular and Tracfone phones right about now. Anyway, enough kvetching. The offer is open to every household approved for housing assistance by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to the FCC. Give 'em a call if you need something... oh. That's right. Just hit the web... oh. Poop.

Feds give out free phones to Katrina evacuees [Textually]"

a clever one

2005-10-25T11:36:00.000-07:00

We got some more donations to the site yesterday. One that we thought was particularly interesting is another non-profit: Save The Ta-Tas. They sell clever T-Shirts to benefit breast cancer. Their link is in the upper left hand corner of the site. Be sure to check them out.

Hattiesburgh

2005-10-25T10:12:00.000-07:00

On Saturday morning we spent some time in Hattiesburgh at another recovery supplies center. The city of Hattiesburgh used a condemned high school gym to recieve, store and manage donations. While there we did similar stuff to what we did at the Gateway Rescue Center.

thanks for all your support

2005-10-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

In the last couple of days we have recieved an overwhelming number of hits to the site from our blog. Many of you have gone ahead and shown your support by displaying our banner on your blogs. Many of you have also gone ahead and donated to the site. We have also recieved some great comments praising our efforts. Donations have topped $2000 to date. Thank you.

All we ask is that if you like what we are doing, please show your support by donating to the site. $5 and 5 minutes is all it takes. Not all of you have PayPal, so we have designed the checkout process so that all you need is a credit card if you don't have a PayPal account. If you don't have a graphic or a website to submit, we can make a graphic for you that links to your blog (or nowhere at all) - this is easy for us to do.

To donate please visit http://www.nickelsforkatrina.org and click on "Buy Pixels" at the top.

-Keith and Steve-

Gateway Rescue

2005-10-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

Our next stop on Friday was the Gateway Rescue Mission center in Pearl. Gateway runs many charity programs such as shelters, thrift shops and soup kitchens. We spent some time helping them out at their main Thrift Shop.

Gateway received an enormous amount of charity donations when the Hurricane relief effort began. To handle all of the donations they received they had to close a portion of their store to open it up for storage and handling of charity receiving. The pictures above are of their donation warehouse. We spent time there helping them unload trucks and sorting through the donations.

To give an idea of how many donations Gateway has received: a few weeks ago their warehouse was packed to four feet from the ceiling.

Our First Stop

2005-10-21T15:02:00.000-07:00

Our first stop was the Rankin County School District. During the semester, the Fraternities and Sororities at Carnegie Mellon put on an event called the "Dollar Challenge." $3000 was raised to be donated to a school that needs financial support in the wake of Katrina. We got to deliver this check in person to the Rankin County superintendent. The check will be used by the school to rebuild the Pass Christian School district, a local area, which was completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

Many of us in the group were part of this charity event so it was good for us to meet the people we were giving to in person.

While there we also got the chance to speak to faculty and students who were affected by the Hurricane. One teacher, in particular, told his story of how he delivered supplies to New Orleans.

The teacher had a son who was stuck in New Orleans. He loaded up his SUV with supplies to deliver and brought them down to the affected areas. All the main roads were blocked so he had to drive through backroads all the way down to New Orleans.

Our next stop was to a local high school. This school opened their doors to hosting high schoolers from New Orleans that had to leave with their families. We got to speak to the students and hear their stories.

All of the students told us about themselves and how they were affected by the Hurricane. Some had pictures of the damage to their homes. It was overwhelming to see what happened to their homes. From talking to the students we got to hear firsthand what it was like for them to lose their homes overnight. It was valuable because we didn't get the usual spin that the news stations put on the Hurricane stories.

What was most striking to me was the resilience many of the students expressed. I spoke to two girls, Karlatta and Amanda who relocated to Mississippi. Only weeks after having to leave their homes, they were optimistic for the future and expressed a positive attitude towards the future. Both were involved with their new community and were appreciative of what others have been generous enough to bless them with.

and we're off!

2005-10-20T22:36:00.000-07:00

We got together Thursday afternoon at about 3:00pm to leave for Mississippi. Shernell and Rowshan rented three vans from Enterprise. This was our transportation for the weekend – quick and dirty.

We drove through the night and straight on till morning. All of us who were over 21 took turns driving and we finally got to Mississippi around noon the next day.

Going Down to Help

2005-10-19T16:38:00.000-07:00

I'll be gone this weekend in Mississippi. Myself and a few others from Carnegie Mellon have volunteered to help with the relief effort. I'll be back on Sunday afternoon and will have a post with more details on what we did.

our banner graphic is up

2005-10-14T16:40:00.000-07:00

We've put up a banner graphic for anyone to download and put on their homepage or e-mail signature. The banner can be downloaded at:

http://nickelsforkatrina.1stgear.net/images/nfkbanner.gif

It looks like this:

Don't forget to link it to http://www.nickelsforkatrina.org.

Since this is version 1 of our banner we are open to feedback. Please let us know how we can make it better.

we're starting to get more attention

2005-10-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

A pretty good day as far as press goes...just got off the phone with a reporter. We should have an article written up next week - more to come on that.

We also got written up on my hometown blog: WestportNow...

Westporter Launches Digital Fund-Raiser for Katrina Victims

Staples grad Steve Kaplan, studying information systems at Carnegie Mellon University, has applied some of his digital skills to launch a Web fund-raiser for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

“I’ve just launched http://www.nickelsforkatrina.org," he said in a message to WestportNow. “The concept is similar to http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com except all of the proceeds go to the Red Cross to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina.”

“The idea is that you can buy pixels on our site. By buying pixels you are entitled to display a graphic and a link to your site. Think of it as a digital billboard,” said Kaplan, 21, a member of Staples Class of 2003.

Kaplan said he has lowered the pixel cost to $.05 each so visitors can buy a 10x10 block for $5.

“We decided that a 10x10 block is the smallest size we will allow people to purchase because it is the least amount of pixels required to display something somewhat meaningful,” he said.

Kaplan said a few blogs have already mentioned the effort and he managed to raise almost $900 in the first day.

“As an avid WestportNow reader I figured that your blog would be a great way for us to get some more exposure – especially in the Westport scene,” he said.

We Got a Press Release Out!

2005-10-11T08:24:00.000-07:00

Our press release hit the wires this morning...feeling so legit right now.

NickelsForKatrina.org Sells Pixels for Hurricane Relief

Two students at Carnegie Mellon University are putting their technical skills to work by selling online advertising space to aid the victims of hurricane Katrina.

(PRWEB) October 11, 2005 -- In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, agencies such as the Red Cross and FEMA have made it clear that the best way to help the effort is to donate money to the cause. Two students at Carnegie Mellon University have heard the call to action and decided to put their skills to work outside of the classroom.

Steven Kaplan and Keith Torluemke are Junior Information Systems majors at Carnegie Mellon and have created a website where users can buy pixels on their homepage in exchange for $.05 each. In other words, it is like buying visual real estate.

The two roommates have a goal of 1 million pixels at $.05 to raise $50,000 for the effort. They have raised nearly $1000 in their first few days of being online.

The idea for selling pixels came from a similar website, The Million Dollar Homepage, which pulled in over $250,000 in four days. However, The Million Dollar Homepage is not a charitable operation and Nickels for Katrina is the only site on the web to donate 100% of all pixel sales to charity.

"Keith and I felt compelled to help. After seeing the success that milliondollarhomepage.com has had in the last few days, we came up with the idea to raise money in a similar way. As Information Systems majors at Carnegie Mellon University, this was a way that we could use our skills to help others..." said Steven.

Buying pixels from the young men is also a compelling opportunity for advertisers. "There are two main reasons to buy pixels from us. First, and most importantly, the victims of Katrina need financial support to help in the recovery effort. Secondly, by buying pixels on our site, you can increase your organization's exposure on the web!", explained Keith.

All proceeds from nickelsforkatrina.org will be donated to the American Red Cross. If you would like to aid in the mission point your browser to http://www.nickelsforkatrina.org. It takes only minutes for you to donate and submit your graphic. If you do not have a graphic to submit they will even make one for you with a message or your initials.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/10/prweb295714.htm

$1000

2005-10-10T19:15:00.000-07:00

We just hit $1000 in donations and have about 1500 unique visitors to date.

We've worked out some kinks in the site and the order process and are ready to ramp this up.

Our main goal now is to spread the word. A few more blogs have picked us up and we're trying to get press releases out. If you have a blog/site we would appreciate you writing a post about us or throwing up a link to us.

Day One Recap

2005-10-06T23:06:00.000-07:00

Day one went pretty well. The official count is at $820.

The orders keep coming in and we're totally stoked about this.

A couple of blogs even picked us up:

iLounge
Uncrate
Bnpositive

If you donate to our site and have a blog, it would be great if you could please put a link to or plug for us. This will help you generate more traffic to us and in turn, we will get more traffic back to you.

If you've submitted stuff to us and it doesn't go up immediately - don't worry. Although we're trying to get these put up ASAP, we are students and have all sorts of other things going on. We can promise, however, that they will be put up within 24 hours of being posted.

All the way to the top...

2005-10-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

Donations have started coming in! So far we have raised over $600.

A special thanks to the guys at iLounge for plugging us on their main page and making a generous donation.

Open for Business!

2005-10-05T23:13:00.000-07:00

It's 2:14am on Thursday morning and I can say that nickelsforkatrina.org has officially launched. The last two days have been consumed by this project.

The site is now open for business. To begin donating click on "Buy Pixels" at the top of the page. All you need to do is pay for your blocks and then tell us what you want on them.

We welcome all feedback as well. Please direct this to either Steve at skaplan@andrew.cmu.edu or Keith at ktorluem@andrew.cmu.edu.