On this page you will find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions.
Everyone's heard of The Million Dollar Homepage - the very first pixel ad site that made a very smart UK student $1M to pay for his university tuition and more. We love this guy because it is truly a great idea.
Our idea is to take the basic premise (pixel ads) and wrap them around a more specific idea (political ads). Even more, how can we give advertisers more bang for their advertising and/or donation buck? So we decided we would donate a portion of every ad to a cause/campaign/etc.
You could donate $100 to a campaign or charity, for example, and have it go into their coffers to use at their discretion. Or, you could buy a $100 Pixelection ad which provides you with a ton of exposure, plus you're still giving money to important causes. In effect, you're giving these causes a lot more value that they would have had normally. You can buy as many pixels as you like from the available inventory. Your pixel ad displays the image/ad/logo of your choice in the space you have purchased. Plus, you can link your image to a website of your choice (as long as the ad and site have no obscene or offensive content). The pixel ads you buy will be displayed on the homepage from the time you buy them until three (3) months after Inauguration Day (January 20, 2009). The homepage will not change. This provides you and your cause extremely good value for your ad dollar.
We are two friends who are sick of the current state of affairs with "campaign finance reform." For privacy reasons, we're keeping our real names to ourselves. You can call us PixelRed and PixelBlue. As our names imply, we come from different sides of the political spectrum. PixelRed is from very conservative Arizona, and PixelBlue is from very liberal Massachusetts. So you're liable to see some heated debate on the blog between us.
Besides our political views, we've known each other for 6 years or so, first working together and then becoming friends and partners. We've worked in technology, Internet, marketing, design, toys, video games and fashion. We're both entrepreneurs at heart and have been working for ourselves for a few years now and loving it.
You'll have to take our word for it.
We would call the genesis of Pixelection kismet between two seemingly unrelated ideas. Idea 1 - PixelRed is in the marketing world and has been thinking about The Million Dollar Homepage (TMH). It's a great idea, and an innovative way to advertise in this weird, wild, Google/Yahoo! driven world. But while the idea had great success with TMH, it hadn't reached its full potential - it could be used for more than a gimmick. Idea 2 - Campaign finance sucks no matter which side you're on. Do we want big companies influencing politics to the detriment of the people? Absolutely not. But do we want our rights as citizens to donate to, advocate for or otherwise support a candidate constrained? Absolutely not. So Pixelection was born. It's an attempt to give the "smaller" players in the electorate (i.e. regular people) make the most of the situation, allowing them to "vote with their dollar" to give us a new glimpse into the political world. And it enables the people squeeze the most value out of their dollar.
We're going to donate 20% of gross ad revenues to outside causes, whether they are campaigns, issue organizations or charities. The rest is going to be used to pay some bills for PixelRed and PixelBlue. Hey, we said we're entrepreneurs, there's nothing wrong with making a little dough while doing some good.
Because you will have an image and a link to your site on the Pixelection homepage which could potentially be seen by millions of people during the election cycle. We are going to promote Pixelection aggressively, which will hopefully be bringing lots of attention and traffic. And the site will be online through April 2009, guaranteed. Try getting that much exposure for the money somewhere else.
Basically, you can't really see a single pixel on your screen, it would be a little dot. So it wouldn't do you much good. If you really want to get just one, call your buddies and form a 10x10 block full of 1 pixel ads.
The site will be online from the time of launch until April 20, 2009 (3 months after Inauguration Day).
Well, in a way we're a copy-cat of The Million Dollar Homepage, so there will likely be other sites that crop up. However, pixel-ads are only the vehicle by which we hope to change the dynamic of political ads and possibly online advertising (although that's a long shot). So we're hoping that our take on the medium is unique in and of itself.
Anyone can advertise on Pixelection to have their voice heard during this Presidential election cycle. Individuals, companies, non-profits, cause-related organizations, issue organizations, three friends who want to endorse a candidate, you name it.
Nope. You can link to any site you want (except adult or pornographic material).
Good question. The original idea for Pixelection was to take 20% of an ad buy and donate it to a candidate or political party - ultimately to help maximize an ad buy to promote a cause or candidate. But...the campaign finance rules were so complex that they made our heads hurt. Donation limits, documenting where the money came from, state limits, national limits, blah, blah, blah...ugghhh! Besides making us want pull our hair out, these silly rules would make the administration of Pixelection way to complicated to execute.
We have fallen victim to what we were hoping to combat. But we will not be denied - we'll give up to the limits to the RNC and DNC ($28.5K), and give the rest to some great charities. So you are still maximizing your political ad buy.
If you have a better, legal way to give more to the parties or candidates, please let us know.
We chose three charities because we didn't want to be perceived as favoring one particular point of view. We then looked for three organizations with causes that were diverse, important and as non-partisan as possible. The three we chose are: