The pixel-advertising phenomenon made headlines last fall when British student Alex Tew, searching for a way to pay for college, put up a Web site and sold ads on it for $1 per pixel, which measures a maximum of 1 millimeter by 1 millimeter, depending on screen resolution.

Publicity about Tew's mission helped drive sales and soon his site, at www.milliondollarhomepage.com, was crammed full of tiny logos. Click on a logo and the user is taken to the advertiser's Web site.

Tew reached his goal of making $1 million after auctioning the last 1,000 pixels for $38,000 on eBay.

But analysts note that Tew's success was largely a novelty-driven fluke.

The key flaw in his business model is a lack of content that would drive a user to a pixel-ad Web site, which is essentially a big billboard.

"I don't put much stock in it," said Cliff Kurtzman, who runs the Online Advertising Discussion Forum.

Kris Oser, who writes for Advertising Age, said it might work on a Web site that already generates significant traffic, such as a social network.

But some Internet enthusiasts believe it could work if the Web sites have "good design, a niche and good traffic," wrote Bindea Marius, who runs PixelAdsTalk.com, an online forum, and freePixelAdvertising.com, in an e-mail interview.

The Miami college students are pivoting their site on a 500,000-pixel map of the United States. The idea is that advertisers would place their ad, a minimum of 10 pixels by 10 pixels, over the geographical area they want to pinpoint.

The site has landed one advertiser, speakforyourcity.com, for $100, which buys a 6-year-long exposure. Its logo hovers over North Dakota.

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