2^22: from $1 to $4,194,304

Perhaps I Should UnBoom Myself Too

tonii — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 21:43:33 +0000

What a great example about how to generate buzz. There’s a discussion on Techcrunch about Rocketboom‘s Amanda Congdon being “forced” to leave the popular video blog over a disagreement with her partner, Andrew Baron.

I left a comment as follows:

“Honestly, I never liked Amanda and from this episode she seemed even more childish & irresponsible. I don’t think Amanda “is” rocketboom. It’s like a lead singer leaving a popular rock band. If the band’s got the songwriter & producers, they’d continue thriving. Of course, this means they need to find a decent replacement. My opinion’s biased because I don’t think Amanda is hard to replace.

But you guys are right. This is indeed generating a lot of buzz. What will happen? More people know about Rocketboom! More people know about Amanda! Both of them will be more popular in the future! (perhaps I should do something similar to hype up my http://www.2tothe22.com experiment )

Some how this situation reminds me of what Arrington and his UI designer had a while back ….. “

What a great way to stir things up eh? Perhaps I should “unboom” myself to generate some viral buzz for 2tothe22.com also …

p.s. Arrington’s report is pretty much biased toward Amanda’s favour. Come on Mike! Haven’t you learned a thing from your own experience? See the other side’s story at:

http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2006/07/05/andrew-baron-responds-to-amandas-video/

First Co-Purchase Completed at 2^7!

tonii — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 09:06:47 +0000

A big thank-you to Ken and Bloglily to pull off the first co-purchase of the 2tothe22 frontpage! Lily actually learned about the 2^22 experiment from Ken’s blog. Thank you guys!

The frontpage value has already doubled seven times to be 2^7 now. Still a long way to go to reach my goal, but I think we’re off to a good start.

Happy Canada Day! Happy Fourth of July!

My 43 things

tonii — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 10:44:43 +0000

So tonight around 3am after filling too much caffeine into my system, I decided to spend my lovely evening playing around 43things.

Interestingly within 4 minutes of posting up an entry, I’ve begun a nice interaction with a user there:

http://www.43things.com/entries/view/950371

This kind of interaction is exactly what I’d envision to have when I decided to work on 2tothe22.com. ”Is it some sort of pyramid scheme?” ”isn’t the last guy the loser?” This is why 2^22 is such a fun social experiment to me. It’s interesting to see different people’s reactions to such a new (and perhaps borderline controversial?) experiment.

If you also have the two questions above, my answers are two huge “no”s.

The “Reality Blog” of Internet Viral Marketing

tonii — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:29:55 +0000

Starting from today I’ll start writing about all of my efforts to generate my website traffic from zero to something extraordinary. I hope gradually this blog will become a “reality blog” of how to do (or not to do ) Internet viral marketing.

So, being a beginner at website marketing, the first step I did was: type “increase traffic” at Google. The first entry was Jim Boykin’s Internet Marketing Blog. Definitely an interesting read. I quickly introduced myself to the crowd as well. I’m not sure if traditional “website marketing” techniques such as SEO content creation is relevant to 2tothe22. Afterall, I couldn’t imagine anyone bumping into Alex’s site by typing “advertising” when he started out last September .

As I was typing this post, a few ideas came to my mind. I’ll see how those ideas will help 2tothe22 generate more traffic. In the mean time, if you have any ideas on how to spread the word, please drop me a note via tonii at 2tothe22 dot com

Entering Co-Purchase Stage …

tonii — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 18:56:29 +0000

We’ve officially entered the “co-purchase stage”, where new buyers can co-purchase the frontpage with other fellow buyers! (well, as the value increases higher, as enthusiastic as I am, I can’t imagine anyone being enthusiastic enough to spend $100K alone to buy the frontpage )

Thanks to Ken from 59ideas for becoming 2tothe22′s first ever co-purchaser AND mentioning about this experiment on his blog!

The Drive Continues …

tonii — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 06:02:01 +0000

After a quiet week, thanks to some nice promotion help from Tim Wright, the drive is back on track today. Thanks Tim, really appreciate this! Of course, a big thank-you to www.rateaprof.com and Carla Walker for participating in the Drive.

If you are a blogger and you've written about the 2tothe22 Drive, please let me know and I'd love to post your link here.

Cheers!

First 3 buyers!

tonii — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 07:13:40 +0000

Within the first 48 hours of the experiment, I've got 3 buyers!

A warm thanks to Jason, Chris, and 8by1. It certainly feels nice to have 3 people believing in the experiment already.

Now this makes me work even harder!

The drive begins!

tonii — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 16:40:17 +0000

I am working to drive the value of 2tothe22.com up from $1 to $4,194,304. How is it done? I am working hard to drive traffic to this website, and I hope to have 22 groups of buyers perceiving it to worth 2x its previous value. Right now, 2tothe22.com worths $1, and I hope to sell it for $2 very soon!

One night in mid May while I was having a terrible headache and was lying on a bed, this idea suddenly came to me magically. To me, I simiply treat it as a fun idea that I hope to prove empirically that buzz on the Internet really does worth a quantifiable value.

Email me at tonii@2tothe22.com if you've got any feedback and comments.

Let the experiment begin!