Web Makes Student Rich
A university student is set to become a millionaire before he graduates after making a fortune from a bizarre website he set up in his spare time. Alex Tew, 21, a first year business studies student at Nottingham University, made £150,000 in the past month selling pixels on a computer screen to advertisers.
"I knew that if I could get some interest out there and get people looking at the site then the pixels I was selling would have value," he said.
"I thought it would work to a degree but not to the degree that it has."
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Alex's website, milliondollarhomepage.com, is divided into 10,000 squares - each one consisting of 100 pixels - and each square costs $1 to buy.
Advertisers have to buy a minimum of 100 squares, but the more they buy, the bigger their advert appears on his website.
Alex was overdrawn when he started university but his lecturers say he is well on his way to becoming a successful entrepreneur.
"It's a fantastic idea and like most really good ideas it's so simple, so effective and also so rapid in its impact," said business expert, Professor Martin Binks.
The site has already attracted plenty of business and Alex aims to make $1m by the end of his degree to finance his studies.
The National Union of Students say 90% of students are in debt. But the only money worries Alex now has is what to spend it all on.
The Million Dollar Homepage, as of 29 December 2005.
Alex Tew, a student in England, has almost reached his target of one million dollars on his website: Million Dollar Homepage. He came up with the idea after jotting down ideas before he went to bed on how to become a millionaire before he went to university. Then he came up with the million-dollar idea: selling pixels at USD $1 each on a web page. Alex currently believes he can make his goal by the end of 31st December, 2005.

Advertising companies especially appreciate the website, as they wish to "make Internet history" on the Million Dollar Homepage. In fact as of writing, he has already made USD $999,000. The student says advertisers get to keep their ads for a period of five years from purchase and he says he will use the money he has made to guarantee it. Alex has said he has already got numerous job offers from companies aiming to secure his money making talent.

Tew is undergoing a business management course at Nottingham and needed GBP £7000 a year to complete his studies. He is understandably overwhelmed by the success he has achieved: "It's just nuts. I'm in a state of disbelief. It's like Monopoly money but then I look at my bank account and there's a lot of cash in it." The British National Union of Students claim that 90% of students are in debt. However, what only worries him is how he's going to spend his money. He has already spent some of his money on a car for himself, as he thinks of what to do with his new fortune.

His website's method is simple; his website is made up of one page divided into 10,000 boxes, each 100 pixels in size. Companies can buy one or more boxes for USD $100 each and cover it with a logo, which, when clicked on, transports web users to the customers' own site.
The figures add up with the site now carrying over 240 advertisements and has 30,000 hits a day. Even the actor Jack Black, star of "''School of Rock''" and "''Shallow Hal''", is using the site to advertise his band Tenacious D.