Interview with Jennifer from Million Dollar Sweethearts.

First of please introduce yourself and your site to our readers?

Hi my name is Jennifer and I'm one of the owners of Million Dollar Sweethearts. Our site is dedicated to romantics and singles. On our page, you will find a 'Heart Of Love', in which couples and singles can post their pictures within the heart. The cost is $10 per square (or 10 cents per pixel). The pictures within the Heart then hotlink to either a website of the poster's choosing (nothing commercial allowed), or to an enlarged photo with optional contact details. Advertising space is also permitted, but only outside the Heart Of Love, and for an increased cost.

Most people have been inspired by the Million Dollar Homepage, where did you get your inspiration from?

Well I've always been fascinated with online dating, romance, and the connection between real-world relationships and how they translate to the online world. The Million Dollar Homepage was a nice, unique idea and it definitely helped inspire the launch of our site.

What makes your site different or special, what angle have you taken for your Pixel page?

As mentioned above, we're targeting singles and couples with more of a romantic theme. We think it makes a special gift idea. Instead of the tired 'flowers and a movie', you tell your sweetheart to check out the website where they see a picture of the two lovers together. It's really an expression of love to the world.

We encourage people to post optional contact details, because we really see the site growing to be an international expression of Love, with lovers from many different backgrounds and 'levels of love' taking part. We also have some secret surprises, once the Heart starts to fill up, that we want to keep to ourselves for now. Lets just say that interactivity is something we really want to focus on going forward.

The original pixel page generated traffic mainly through viral marketing mainly spawned by media interest, how do you generate traffic to your site?

We believe that a good idea, and good word of mouth is the best way for your site to grow. We are doing this site for fun, and because of the potential we feel it has. It is also our first real effort at web development, so it is a great learning experience also. We are not interested in spamming or paying for link exchanges, or any of the other gimmicks out there.

What do you offer potential advertisers, how much do you charge and how much traffic do you envisage an advertiser could generate by advertising with you?

Advertisers are offered space outside the Heart Of Love for $1/pixel. Since the site is still in its infancy, it's really hard to predict how large the site will grow. One thing we've noticed thus far, is that people who are subscribers tend to revisit the site daily. Also, people who just happen to come across the site, tend to follow the links on and around the Heart Of Love. Right now for instance, approximately 30% of the visitors to the page are clicking through to one of our sponsors, Bitsymmetry Consulting. We feel the pixel-nature of the page, encourages this high click-through rate.

Currently the top 5 Alexa ranked pixel sites enjoy a lot of interest from the public. How long do you think this will last, is there a long term future for pixel pages?

I think, as with any other Internet trend, only the strong will survive. A lot of pages will simply die because the site-owners were simply in it for a fast buck. We have more of a long term strategy, with this site being simply our entry point into something we hope will be much larger.

Thanks for your time in answering these questions. Before you go are there any comments you want to impart to our pixel hungry readership?

Spread the word, give feedback. If you go to a pixel site, and have something to suggest to the site owners, then by all means do it. I've talked to a few pixel page owners and for the most part they're really nice people.