Pixel sites generating mass traffic through the best system in the book -- viral email and word of mouth.

(PRWEB) October 11, 2005 -- The Pixel site craze has exploded in the last week, with hundreds of new pixel sites jumping on the bandwagon.

For those who haven't yet been exposed to a pixel site, it's simply a page with ten thousand blocks on it, each of which can be purchased by an advertiser.

Each block is ten pixels wide and 10 pixels high, and thus there are a million pixels on the page. Most of the pixel sites are selling blocks of pixels from $0.01 up to $100 per block (a block being 100 pixels).

So why would an advertiser want to purchase a tiny image on a page filled with other tiny images? Simple? The pages are getting lots of visitors, and thus the advertisers who have clever images are generating good brand exposure and a large number of visitors to their sites, although admittedly the traffic is highly untargetted and thus of low quality.

Nevertheless, John Crazen, one of the partners in http://www.HalfMillionDollarPicture.com says that advertisers are generating great amounts of branding and visitors for very little investment. In addition, many of the sites have voiced their intention to keep the sites up for a few years, which will give advertisers long term exposure.

HalfMillionDollarPicture.com sells pixels at $0.50 so an advert on the site can be bought for as little as $50.

Crazen says that the Pixel sites, which only launched a few weeks back, are finally allowing advertisers to get creative and innovative on the Net.

The Pixel sites too, are becoming more creative, with the design improving, and many of them are offering innovative strategies to keep the visitors to the sites a few minutes longer -- Crazen says that HalfMillionDollarPicture.com was the first to have a background picture behind the blocks, and within hours of launching, he had spotted other Pixel sites doing the same thing.

However, it's a Pixel Wild West at the moment, and it's going to take a few months until anyone is really clear on whether a true business model can emerge from the Pixel sites, or whether they are a fun fad with some quick branding exposure for a few cutting edge advertisers.