DollarAs a rule of thumb, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. As a naturally skeptical person(sometimes to an extreme), I immediately question any money making idea that doesn’t involve a solid foundation of research, knowledge, experience and time. There are, however, a very small number of success stories that don’t seem to follow the natural laws of reason.


The Idea: million dollar home page

21 year old, Alex Tew lay, came up with the simple idea of selling ad space on his page by the pixel. The 1 million pixel image on his website was divided into 10,000 boxes, each box 100 pixels(10×10). If he was able to sell every pixel on the page, that would mean $1million dollars in revenue. Guess what, it worked. You can read more at The Million Dollar Blog.

Why it worked:

This idea worked because he was smart enough to involve the press. Once word got out, he quickly sold all but the last 1000 pixels. At this point, he obviously realized he could take it up a notch by selling the final 1000 on ebay for $38,100.00.

Is it Legal:

This is most definitely legal. I just wish I would have though of it first as it probably wouldn’t work again.


The Idea: Stock Manipulation via spam(email/fax)

A recent study found that stock manipulation pays between 4.9 to 6% return for those who can execute it properly. This is not annual return as they don’t do this once a year, but rather each time they do it. Judging from my email inbox and work fax, someone is doing this several times a day. Who know, all that fax/email spam is actually making someone rich. Here is how it works, you pick a stock, usually a penny or extremely small cap stock. It probably doesn’t really matter which one. You buy up a bunch of shares one day, then the next day(or that night) you send out a email and fax blast to everyone on the planet reporting that the stock is ready to break. Sure, most people will ignore your message all together, but obviously those that don’t will help push the stock higher. Once this happens, you jump out and enjoy your gains. Pump and Dump.

Why it worked:

This works simply because the spam message pumping up the stock reached enough people that the very small percentage of recipients that ‘bought’ into the stock you were pushing helped push up its market value.

Is It Legal:

Yes and no. In the United States, there are laws restricting this type of activity on all FTC managed markets. So, this is NOT legal on most publicly traded stocks, with the exception of stocks traded on the pink sheets which is not protected by the FTC.


The Idea: Become a Adsense whore

How would you like to make $300,000 a month without selling a single thing. It is possible, here is how. Step 1, setup a free online dating service. Step 2, setup a google adsense account. Step 3, figure out how to generate 500 million page views per month(this is the hard part). Step 4, BIG profit.

Why it worked:

This is actually a very simple idea, the key here is being able to generate the extremely high number of page views. Sites like myspace, youtube do this well. Basically, you build a loyal user base and figure out how to get them to come back daily and stay on the site for hours on end. What you are doing is basically maximizing your ad content’s visibility.

Is It Legal:

Yes, very much so! And, you can do it too. Ok, probably not to the tune of $300,000 per month unless you can figure out how to generate 500 million page views, but you can generate a small fraction of that and make a few bucks with a semi-popular site or article. You can find plenty of resources on the net on how to build a popular blog. You can start with a simple wordpress setup and build up from there. Here are a few resources to help.

How to Make Money From Your Blog
How to Attract Links and Increase Web Traffic – The Ultimate Guide
Making your blog popular through content
Making Money with Your Blog from A to Z
I made $622,322.96 in 2009 from affiliate marketing


I personally tend to follow the Get Rich Slow school of thought, at least until I finish building my 2 million dollar stock spam adsense home page.







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