WSU student turns to Web ads as solution to his student debt

When Seth Connell graduates from Washington State University, he’ll be more than $60,000 in debt.

In that respect, he’s not unlike the two-thirds of college students who leave school with a sheepskin and thousands of dollars in student loans.

But Connell’s plan to pay it off is a little less typical. He hopes to sell thousands of small, inexpensive ads on his Web site, patterning his effort after an English college student who made a million dollars by selling ads on a home page for $1 a pixel.

“Basically, it’s the same principle,” Connell said. “This kid in England, he got his Web site to work and made money on it, so I thought – huh.”

Connell launched his Web site in early May, and he’s only sold two $10 ads so far. But he’s been contacting other businesses around the region, and hopes that lots of different enterprises will be interested. The idea is that for 10 bucks, a business can have a long-term presence online, and that if the Web site grows it will bring even more viewers to those ads.

The English home page became a media phenomenon – but it was also the first of its kind, and press reports note that similar sites have sprung up since.

Connell is a junior from Redmond, Wash., studying digital technology and culture, and anthropology. He’s hoping to graduate next year. He spent about a week and a half designing the site – adbarrel.com – and says he’s improved on the English version in a variety of ways that make it easier to use.

Technically, there are hundreds of thousands of potential spots for ads on the site – a $10 purchase gives the advertiser a 100-pixel space on Connell’s site, which links to the advertiser’s full Web site.

If he exceeds the money he needs for student loans, he plans to save for a variety of other expenses, he said, including possibly helping pay for surgeries his 5-year-old brother needs to combat a rare spinal cord disorder.

“I just want to be able to help pay for that if my parents can’t,” he said.