I realise it's a gag. But...

Have the site sponsored by different people each day, and record the number of clicks on that day. Keep an archive, make it competitive.

e.g. 30th October is Obama day (just an example - not partisan), click to show your support! Sponsor pays some rate per click (or just to hire the site for the day).

As others have mentioned, your button would appear in many places (facebook widget, etc), so that would add some value to the potential sponsors.

Of course, they could put up their own button, but that wouldn't get them into your archives or the kudos of having the one and only 'clickthatbutton.com' buzz.

I don't think I'm being serious. But then, it's not that much crazier than the million-dollar homepage.

All good ideas of directions to take this, imo. Now that's insight. The have a different sponsor every day is something I thought of while I was making my pointless post (see bottom of this page) but neglected to mention.

Our logo is a button. I'd sponsor you for a day.

There's a fine line between irony/parody and wasting everyone's time...

Somewhere there's a real startup who posted here and nobody upvoted or commented about their work.

I'm sure this is pressing their buttons about now.

Thank you for finally emphasizing the fact that not every website is a startup.

Unless I'm missing something, that's not a "startup" it's a webpage with a clickable button.

What's the point? What's the business model? (seriously).

Well, I've always been a fan of the 37signals school of thought around bringing simplicity to web applications. You know - the whole "Getting Real" thing.

The way I see it, this has a better business model than a lot of web startups nowadays. At the very least, we've got a slow "burn rate" seeing as how we've spent about 5 hours on the project. As for generating revenue? I think we've got a while before we have to worry about that. We're more focused on scaling the systems than anything right now.

Over 100k clicks on day one? Here's to a successful launch!

This took you five hours? Seriously?

Photoshopping a nice button takes longer than you think...

At least your main competitor gets ad revenue:

http://www.instantrimshot.com/

Shit. I'll have to talk to the CEO about this. We should have done more market research.

I wouldn't worry, your button is much nicer looking than theirs (it's inverted, wtf?)

Don't forget its sister site:

http://www.sadtrombone.com/

I already use instantrimshot on a daily basis. Now this one. More than I use Facebook...

37 signals provides products that people pay for and get value from.

Your button adds no value, has no stickyness, and is not something people will pay for.

I think your "product" here is just creative trolling.

Maybe it would help if you thought of it as an art project instead. In any case - and I hope this doesn't come off as trolling - isn't creativity exactly the sort of thing us hackers should be striving for? If you measure success in terms of "mak[ing] something people want" then I'd call this a success, if only a small one. For whatever reason, people sure do seem to enjoy clicking that button!

Creativity? http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_enNZ291... google: ajax counter.

Sell it to tipjoy :)

Or to Staples.

Hi,

I'd like to invest in your startup. Would you be willing to implement Social networking features, file sharing (with intelligent auto-removal of copyright infringing material) and live micro-macro-socio-splogging?

Given that you spent 5 hours on this so far, I reckon you'll be able to implement these features in another 10. I'm willing to invest $5 for 40%. Interested?

Upvote this if you feel like it. What do you think of my new startup? Got the idea at http://clickthatbutton.com/

Hmmm... I think you should definitely go after the enterprise market.

I cheated:

    while true; do curl -d submit.x=1 -d submit.y=1 -b clickthatbutton=10521 http://clickthatbutton.com/; echo; done

edit: and apparently you (or my ISP) throttle ;)

We need to get this code threaded...

    #!/bin/sh

    n=10
    while [ $n -ge 0 ]; do
    	sh -c "while true; do curl -d submit.x=1 -d submit.y=1 -b clickthatbutton=10521 http://clickthatbutton.com/; echo; done" &
    	n=`expr $n - 1`
    done

Change "n=10" to change the number of concurrent requests. Anyone have a better method?

Nice approach, My friend and I were trying to do the same thing. http://juliocapote.com/post/56866975/so-you-want-to-click-th... bookmarklet version: http://ubergibson.com/~alan/bmforge/

Is hackthatbutton.com taken?

C/MPI!

So, why are you sending the coordinates of each click back to the server?

I'm sure it would make a nice looking heat map, but is there some other reason?

Sending the coordinates is the standard http behavior in the case of image submit buttons.

Doh. That's a pretty good reason.

I like the simplicity, but not sure how will monetize it? Maybe offer it as widget for other sites? Or perhaps create a FB app? Certainly lots of potential. And people really like clicking buttons.

"Go ahead, click the button... That'll be ten million dollars."

Needs more cowbell.

I assume this is a joke.

Having said that, if you are creative you may well be able to cash in on this considering the attention that your site appears to be getting. I remember, a few years ago, some kid made a page that sold ads to people for $1 per pixel on the page. The page contained nothing other than these ads. The kid was trying to make $1m and he did it - enough people were willing to pay a dollar or few dollars to be a part of his idea even if they didn't really benefit from it.

I'd look at adding advertising to the page - I'd love to watch you make a million from a page with a button on it!

I didn't click the button.

I didn't want to. Too many people had done it already

I clicked it and when I found out others have already clicked it I felt cheap and used.

I clicked it several times. The fact that other people had clicked it too made me feel like I belong to a community, like there are people out there who care about me and my button-clicking.

I clicked it, and then I wanted to know how my clicking compared to other people. Unfortunately, there are no stats.

Sweet, all you need is some venture capital and you're on your way to the big time!

This is at the same level of madness as "I am rich" iPhone application except that application had a cost model to it unlike this one...

Well, your 15 minutes should be up any time now...

Brilliant.

Google Killer.

Techcrunch, is that you?

Not sure about the colors, maybe invest in a designer and a copywriter, and did you know the button was SQL Injectable? You're off to a great start, but I worry about Facebook and Google turning this into a feature instead of a product. Consider the enterprise.

"10087 clicks from you... Thank You"

<grunt> bigthboy not amused... buttons make bigthboy angry! <roar>...

but in all honesty, what is the true point behind this? I am aware of people's addiction to press buttons, but if you can convince someone to pay you in order to press a button then you've got something. Without that, I really just don't think this is anything more than a time-sink for those who are procrastinating, and most certainly not a start-up. =P

Anyone else remember "Button, Button" from the Twilight Zone, where a couple is offered $200K if they push a button on a box. The only catch is that if they push it, someone they don't know will die?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button,_Button_(The_Twilight_Zone)

Creepy.

I like it. I gave it around 180 clicks before I left the page. It was a good experience.

This is going straight to the front page of TechCrunch!

Hm, looks familiar. Mine has chat, though. http://click-a-billion.com/

this shit is about as cool as a steaming shit coming out of my ass(whilst shitting from a hovering helicopter) and landing inside an active volcano. If you think this is an actual business model, you sir, are fucking delusional. the jig is up, fraud

Make an API or an app for Facebook/Myspace or a widget for Wordpress and watch it spread. ;)

Your button is bad and you should feel bad. Is this really what Hacker News has come to?

A+++++++++++++++++++++

Would click again.

Thousands of visitors and it still says "1 clicks" -- doh.

why would anyone come back to this..what the hell..i dont get it

No, you do. That's the problem.

I don't get it.

shoulda entered this into railsrumble!

Rails!? That doesn't scale. This is all Erlang.

i admit it, i'm a clicker...

it was just too much for me. i'm suing you for rehab therapy now to cure my aclicktion.

they say you haven't succeeded as a business until you're sued. congratulations, give me your money now

i clicke 250 without stopping... whats wrong! and checkout the speed at which counter is running... while biggies like facebook and orkut try so hard to engage users into social networking etc... this simple clickthatbutton has done it with amazing simplicity! wow!