Millions of Pieces

ALEX TEW HAS WEB SURFERS SEEING SPOTS

Priced out of that primo-Everglades-land deal? Brooklyn Bridge a mite too steep? If so, Alex Tew has a virtual-real-estate offer for you ... while supplies last. In August, the 21year-old business student from Wiltshire, England, slapped together a Web site and began selling one million pixels for a buck apiece, which owners could decorate and link to as they saw fit. A week later—wouldn't you know it?—the thing went viral. By press time, Tew had pocketed some $600,000, together with his 15-minute ration of e-fame alongside lip-synching whiz kid Gary "Numa Numa" Brolsma. Not only does Tew's milliondollarhomepage.com make for addictive surfing, but it's an ominously eye-catching work of pointillist art, a billboard-choked entrance ramp to the info superhighway. At the moment, between uploading pixels, fielding media inquiries, and showering his earnings on fellow dorm rats at the local pub, Tew is still holding down a full course load at the University of Nottingham. He's also cooking up another scheme for "making up money out of thin air," as he puts it—loginchillout.com, an audiovisual meditation site for stressed-out office workers. If only he'd launched it months ago: "I could definitely do with some deep-relaxation exercises myself," he says.

AARON GELL