From James Hongs blog…
The decision to restart HOTorNOT recently is a fairly ballsy one, we are shutting down the cashcow and going for it again. It’s risky, but a hell of a lot more fun!! For the time being, we’re only looking to let 4 people(developers) in.
hotornot claims they make 5 million plus a year and vast majority of that is profit because they have little to no costs or employees.
January 27, 2007 at 6:22 pm |
No wonder, according to compete they are taking a HARD dive!
40% loss in unique visitors, 1173% i.e. 10x loss in rank (now this is arguable…)
overall they are becoming a looser and have to scrap back to 0 point
January 27, 2007 at 9:07 pm |
he’s hungry for more
January 29, 2007 at 2:02 pm |
If James doesn’t do anythign to the site it’ll be dead in 6 months. I actually spoke to him recently, and I don’t think he’s going to ditch paid features, rather mix them in with a free basic site. Also, expect to see more standard dating site features, cause as it stands, HototNot pretty much sucks.
January 29, 2007 at 4:46 pm |
Given that hotornots main demographic is 18-24 they are competing with okcupid which has the same demographic. I wonder if they will launch tests and the like.
January 29, 2007 at 10:27 pm |
Markus,
I think James Hong is going to try something a bit more interesting than tests and stuff like that. Do you consider them to be a dating site first, or a popularity contest first?
They’ve made a ton of money, and probably see the fact they’ve been resting on their laurels as a bad thing. Why wait till your site becomes irrelevant when you can reinvigorate it now.
January 30, 2007 at 1:04 am |
My guess is they try and combine youtube and dating and it would probably work with the young crowd. Its not easy to change when your already a massive site. Its much harder to change, keep your existing userbase and then continue to grow when big. Sites that have nothing to lose will change a minute.
January 30, 2007 at 3:20 pm |
I know they really want to develop their brand, and mixing in video would make sense, at the end of the day they are a rating site, and given the type of sites that are popping up in SF – yelp etc then why not develop ratings across the baord – video clips, films, restaurants, plummers – who knows…
I still think they want to keep thepaid membership in place though..so I can’t see too much growth unless they open their doors up to everyone.
January 30, 2007 at 8:43 pm |
I hope they go for a web2.0 makeover or something. HotorNot is one of the oldest surely? and although not competing exactly on the same vertical, the advent of social networking must be reason enough to step up the pace
January 31, 2007 at 4:32 pm |
[...] had a chuckle this morning when I saw that Markus says that HotorNot competed with OkCupid. He thinks HotOrNot will move to a hybrid YouTube/dating [...]
January 31, 2007 at 6:06 pm |
[...] had a chuckle this morning when I saw that Markus says that HotorNot competed with OkCupid. He thinks HotOrNot will move to a hybrid YouTube/dating [...]