The mini-revival of dotcom mania is in full swing. Even The Guardian printed a student entrepreneur story yesterday. A month ago the “bedroom boffin” (as has probably already been described by his local newspaper) had an idea that’s turned out to be a cleverer than it looks on paper. Alex Tew’s milliondollarhomepage sells off space by the pixel on a single collective hoarding/billboard. Each piece of screen real estate links to its purchaser’s own site. He won’t take porn ads, but doesn’t seem to have any moral problems with the ubiquitous Golden Palace Casino. Some advertisers put up their logos; others are more cryptic; some are plain stupid. I had no problem resisting the temptation of a banner carrying the illiterate brag “I’M RICH, YOUR NOT”, but had to click on a tiny blue blob marked with the word “song” to reach its target, a page that streams a not-unpleasant ditty by
a Gloucester band called Ghosting, delivered in an Athlete pretending-to-talk-to-my-mates-dahn-the-pub vocal.