Hot or Not: fun, clean and real
The KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is very powerful when it is applied to a website. And Hot or Not is a great example. Hotornot.com was originally a site where people could rate the registered users by using a scale of 1 to 10. The scores were published to both the user and the public. This simple idea and smart work from the founders were enough to make this site really popular.
HotorNot.com was founded by James Hong and Jim Young in October 2000. Initially, they had no real plans for the service to be anything other than a fun site for a few friends. One day, they launched the site and emailed 40 friends. But they were able to get 40,000 visitors that day.
Now, almost eight years later, Hotornot.com is not only a rating site, but also an online dating site. It has a service called “Meet People”. It is very similar to the basic rating service, but you can know more details about the users. You must click ‘YES’ on the people that you would like to meet. If somebody also clicks ‘YES’ to you, he or she will appear in your double-match list.
HotorNot.com has become a profitable business by establishing three revenue sources: advertising (including Adsense), virtual flowers and a Premium service that allows users to connect with other users with no restrictions. In the last days, Hotornot.com was acquired by Avid Life Media. The buyers paid around $20 million for the site. Not bad at all for a website run out of the living room by two guys.
Take a look, click here.
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