The Million Dollar Homepage Reimagined for 2026: Faces Instead of Pixels
February 18, 2026
In 2005, a 21 year old British student named Alex Tew launched the Million Dollar Homepage. The concept was absurdly simple: a single web page divided into a grid of 1 million pixels, each sold for $1. Buyers could place a tiny image with a link in their purchased pixels. Within five months, every pixel was sold. Alex Tew made exactly $1,000,000. The site became one of the most famous viral websites in internet history.
Twenty-one years later, the internet is a fundamentally different place. Social media dominates. Everyone has a personal brand. The desire to be seen and discovered online is stronger than ever. So we asked a simple question: what if the Million Dollar Homepage was rebuilt for 2026, but instead of advertisements and tiny logos, it featured real human faces?
From Pixels to People
That is exactly what Faces On The Wall is. A 1,000 by 1,000 grid with room for 1 million individual blocks. But instead of a pixel containing a tiny ad, each block contains a real person's face, their name, a personal message, hashtags, and links to their social media profiles.
The price is the same: $1 per spot. But the value is completely different. On the original Million Dollar Homepage, you were buying advertising space. On Faces On The Wall, you are buying a permanent place in a living, breathing digital artwork. You are not promoting a product. You are putting yourself on the internet's largest photo mosaic.
What the Original Got Right
The genius of the Million Dollar Homepage was its simplicity. Anyone could understand the concept in five seconds. The scarcity was real and visible: you could watch the grid fill up in real time, and once a pixel was sold, it was gone forever. The price point was low enough that anyone could participate, but the cumulative effect was staggering. These same principles drive Faces On The Wall.
What We Changed for 2026
The internet of 2005 was a very different place. Facebook was a year old. Twitter did not exist. Instagram was four years away. People did not have personal brands the way they do now. The Million Dollar Homepage sold advertising space because that is what made sense in 2005.
In 2026, the most valuable thing you can put on the internet is your face. People want to be discovered. Creators want followers. Entrepreneurs want visibility. Artists want an audience. Faces On The Wall gives everyone the same opportunity: upload your photo, link your profiles, and let thousands of curious browsers find you.
We also rebuilt the technology from the ground up. The original Million Dollar Homepage was a static image. Faces On The Wall is a fully interactive, zoomable canvas powered by HTML5. You can pinch to zoom on mobile, scroll to zoom on desktop, and smoothly navigate from the full mosaic view all the way down to individual face detail. It is a modern web application, not a JPEG.
The Social Layer
The biggest difference between the two projects is the social element. Every block on Faces On The Wall links to real people with real social media profiles. When you click on a face, you do not see an ad. You see a human being with an Instagram, a TikTok, a LinkedIn, a portfolio, or a personal website. The wall becomes a discovery engine. Browsing it is like exploring a directory of interesting people from around the world.
People have already reported gaining new followers, making professional connections, and receiving messages from strangers who found them on the wall. For $1, that is a remarkable return on investment.
Will It Reach 1 Million?
That is the question. The Million Dollar Homepage sold out in five months. Whether Faces On The Wall can fill 1 million spots depends entirely on how many people see it and decide that $1 is worth a permanent place on the internet's largest photo mosaic. The wall is live right now, and it is filling up. The sooner you claim your spot, the closer to the center of the mosaic you will be.