The Million Dollar Webpage. The Million Dollar Wiki. The Million Dollar Pile of Mud. It seems like everyone on the Internet is trying to break into seven figures these days and they’re trying to get as creative as possible with ways to achieve that magical number. One of the latest efforts on this front is The Social Millionaire, a site that tries combine the appeal of social networks with the goal of raising one million dollars. They asked for a review, so here it is.
The Road to Riches
So, what is the idea behind the Social Millionaire? According to the about page, it is the website of a young entrepreneur named Pat Hankinson. He is just 19 years old, but he’s already working hard to achieve true dot com mogul status. The goal of the Social Millionaire is to accumulate one million dollars from social networks.
In a nutshell, advertisers are given the opportunity to buy keywords with a minimum bid of $1. Unlike other similar websites, multiple people can own the same keyword on the Social Millionaire. The person who paid the higher amount will show up higher in the list; in the event that they bid the same amount, the person who paid sooner gets listed higher.
The Connection to Social Networks
Based on this rather simple business model, it doesn’t seem like the Social Millionaire is doing anything, well, social. It’s just another paid directory of sorts where people pay to get their websites listed under a keyword of their choosing. Well, the key difference is that Pat Hankinson is actively involved in a number of social networks and he will be actively promoting his efforts on these social networks.
Here are some of the sites where Pat spends his time:
Pat is using all of his profiles on all of these social networks to promote the Social Millionaire and by doing so, he hopes to bring in new and repeat visitors. He plans on doing this for the life of the site, which he plans to keep live until March 2013 “at minimum.” The blog will also be continually updated during this time.
Buying Keywords
By clicking on the link near the top of the page, you are able to buy keywords. This is slightly deceiving, because you can also buy keyword phrases, seemingly of unlimited length. From a single transaction, you are able to buy up to ten keywords, setting your own price. The only other piece of information you’ll need to provide is an email address.
Upon submitting this form, you are redirected to PayPal where you will complete the purchase. When the payment is confirmed, you are then directed to another page where you specify the details for each keyword (or keyword phrase) that you purchased.
The entire process of buying keywords, from beginning to end, took less than five minutes. It was all very intuitive and easy to do.
What Keywords Did I Buy?
John told me to buy a couple of keywords (or keyword phrases) so that I would know first hand what it would be like to move the Social Millionaire a little closer to his goal. Although it is set up like a tag cloud, the relative size of the font is not indicative of the links within. This seems a little unfair, because bigger words will necessarily attract more attention. Anyways, can you guess which two keywords I bought?
I’ll give you a hint. One is more related to what John Chow does, whereas the other is a little more relevant to what I do.
Social Millionaire or Just Social?
Considering that most people are only going to buy keywords a dollar at a time, Pat Hankinson might take a long while before he can truly call himself the Social Millionaire. At the time this review was written, Pat has racked up just $213.61. Looking at the widget in the top-right of the website is just depressing, because it shows that he still has another $999,786.39 to go. Ouch!
Promoting The Social Millionaire on the various social networks seems like a solid idea, but I don’t think that it’ll be enough for Pat to rake in seven figures. I encourage him to prove me wrong though!
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(11 votes, average: 3.36 out of 5)
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What and interesting concept.
It sounds a bit gimmicky to me. It’s kind of like the pixel millionaire and we’ve seen other words they sites like this in the past. It’s going to be a hard road to get this one to work.
I agree Alan, it’s definitely going to be a tough road to succeed w/ this one, especially since there have been so many sites with similar strategies in the past. I do wish Pat the best of luck though
yeah i agree as well … it is going to be really hard to get this up and going.
Well it will work to a certain point, but I doubt it will bring up to a million (actually lucky he if he reaches a 4 digit number).
Hey, it’s gone up a little since this review. He only has $999,489.48 to go for the million dollars.
It is a gimmick from what I see. Everyone has a dream and an idea but, unless your idea offers something of value you will not get much in return.
Very interesting approach.
But direct link sales gets into Google’s notice immediately and we won’t be benefitted from such sites.
So John bought “meal planner” and you bought “video dating” there I solved it.
Meal Planner…….???
your posts are the hardest to understand … maybe a little clarification :p
It’s a pretty good idea that would probably be successful with a big boost from media to get it going. Intially there may not be interest if there isn’t much traffic. That is how another similar idea did it, the successful MillionDollarHomePage.com where a young guy raised a million dollars selling pixel advertising space. He got a boost from media.
That brought other sites including OneMillionBlogFaces.com which is attempting to get one million blog faces and he donates the money for his HouseForMom.com project. That is simialr to OneRedPaperClip.com where the guy traded a paper clip up to a house. There is also the dtamp.blogspot.com which he is attempting to keep doubling his money to a million. There are many others that have similar plans or ideas.
I hope he and everyone else can reach their goals!
~Terry
Crazier things have resulted in great success. I guess we’ll have to see with this one.
he’s 19 and he’s doing all this pretty dam cool
Yep, it seems like a model unlikely to work, but hey, at least he is giving it a shot and I hope he keeps going until he gets to his goal, and then surpasses it
Yeah on this i can praise him
so how many of you who frequents Johchow have become successful in blogging in terms of money?
Hey, I’ve made $10 so far! lol will grow though.
Good concept but I have to agree with everyone else… without having a good marketing plan it would be a tough road ahead for Pat. But best of luck to him all the same…
Btw, as for the two keywords you purchase. You got “Data Entry Jobs” and John bought “Work At Home Mom”… hehe… just kidding!
It seems like the new craze. I am 21, close to Pat’s age. For us in school, facebook, blogger, myspace, and all those social networks were the in thing. Using those services to help bring traffic in is a good idea. Some people are very active in those networks, and have established many “friends” and groups.
Using the social networks can bring in some money, and boost your traffic some. Not as much as some of the larger advertising/affiliate programs we use, but every little bit helps.
I feel that it couldn’t hurt, but not to rely on it. Don’t waste all of your time there, but even it out. As one said, “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket”.
Well said Wade. The social networks can definitely bring in some extra traffic, but it is important not to ONLY rely on them as a traffic source. It’s important to diversify
Not sure where this program will end up…
-Mike
“He plans on doing this for the life of the site, which he plans to keep live until March 2013 “at minimum.” The blog will also be continually updated during this time”
You remember Mike , this guy is also on the path of Graham, he also calimed once that he will run the milliondollorwiki upto 2020 and then started this Entrecard Drama and sell his company to some other guy. You wrote a entire post about it that how Graham cheated and stop spending money to advertise milliondollorwiki ( except buying few reviews on this blog and some other A-list blogs )
These guys sucks !!!
Hey, One Buck Wiki still lives! With rise of SiteHoppin.com, One Buck Wiki will live forever!
On a secret note, SiteHoppin will be selling “wiki pages” on the site soon.
I don’t think buying keywords in directories will be of any help, since everyone who enters such a site will only be interested in placing their keywords. They won’t browse through the list of websites given in the directory. And Google I think is smarter than we think. It does not give much weightage to links placed in directories.
Pat here from The Social Millionaire.
Glad to see the review came out today!
Just a few things. I have an excellent marketing plan which will actually begin today (starts after this review) which involves the media which I have worked with before appearing in a couple of newspapers and one pretty big magazine. Hopefully you realize all the hype in newspapers, magazines and other print media surrounding MySpace and Facebook.
I would also like to point out that I have just launched and already have an extremely high Alexa Rating and have already been included in the Hot Communities tab in MyBlogLog with TechCrunch. You know that blog with 780,000 readers?
@Shanker: I have no intention of giving up on this idea like Graham did on the Million Dollar Wiki. He had something good and dropped the idea. I think that is why Entrecard will eventually fail!
I like your spirit Pat. Keep following through and working hard, good things will happen
I’ll check up on the Social Millionaire’s site every once in awhile to see how you are progressing!
This is just like the millions of other “million dollar” websites that never worked.
lol … funny comment of the post. ..
i think it would be a cool widget if we can rate the funny comment of the post / useful comment of the post / crappy comment of the post….
P.S. - Michael & John the $52 billion order did not go through, could you try again or should I just send the bill to you?
Let me check if I have enough funds in my PayPal account….
Nope. Try me again next week.
What a piece of crap.
Hint to Pat Hankinson: If you want to become an online mogul, build something that is at least interesting if you can’t come up with a few ideas that have some semblance of originality. Oh, and stop trying to feed off of other people’s presumed stupidity. In the end, you are the only one that looks stupid.
To Michael Kwan: If you are going to write product reviews, grow some balls and learn to call a spade a spade.
@Jcyerus: This idea is completely different then the Million Dollar Homepage or Million Dollar Wiki. Everybody sees the “million dollar” goal and just assumes it’s an idea spun off the other. I am inspired by the Million Dollar Homepage but this is not why I started this website.
As far as copy-cat goes too looks like you are making a “get rich” blog. Create a blog fill it with some content and throw Google Ads on it. Not sure how you can tell me to be creative when you’re doing the same thing millions of other people do.
Hey, as developer of One Buck Wiki, you are doing a great job, but you need a find a way to keep bringing in traffic after the John Chow train dies off. You could advertise but it could cost you more money than you make like it did for me. But we are selling Wiki pages on SiteHoppin soon so… I think it’s matter of how well you can market it with the money you have.
There are many different ways to get traffic for free. I will be focusing on those at the moment because they can generate more then any paid review can. I did these paid reviews to dip my toe into the water.
Yeah, I highly recommend reading and commenting on other related blogs such as this one. That’s probably one of the best ways to promote w/o promoting.
Hey, try SiteHoppin.com too, we got some beer credits and beer widgets that give you free traffic.
I wish you the best. don’t let the criticizm deter you.
The idea isn’t original, but the add on ’social’ part is, sorta. I don’t think he’ll make the million dollars.
hmm i wonder how reliable this is
Hmm, its like a blend of a directory and tag clouds ( web 2).
I think he would have benefited more by not naming it millionaire something, but just something that the service does. The millionaire part is pointless even if he wants to make a million.
I bought a link b/c he seems like a mature 19 year old who is making a run at this without throwing a hissy fit over the negative comments.
If facebook can sell thousands of “gifts” a day than perhaps over time this site will be able to sell the space.
He’s trying and that’s what matters, imo.
Thanks for the purchase! Despite the amount of negative comments there are still a lot of people buying from the website. I have almost hit $400 already.
The effort is what matters most. It really seems like he’s giving his site ALL HE’S got and doing a great job marketing.
I agree with Syed. Doesnt seem reliable!
I’ll pick up a keyword too.
Pat, good to know you’ve nearly made your money back from the review!
As someone famously said, “it costs money to make money”.
btw, I bought Investing, Passive Income, Buy Gold
Anyone figure out John Chow’s and Michael Kwan’s keywords yet? I’ll give you a hint for one: all of the characters are capitalized. It is a bug but I will let it slide
Interesting concept that you can buy the same keywords as someone else. I dont think I have seen that done before.
I don’t think it’ll work, but who knows I was the dummy in college writing a paper about how blogging will never catch on and die like any fade in 2 years time. Sky the limits for this kid.