Jim younger and James Hong are alive, well, rich and dabbling in brand new news.
June 2, 2014 — Before there was Facebook, or YouTube, Twitter or Tinder, there was clearly HOTorNOT, the internet site where (into the terms of co-founder James Hong), “People uploaded their image for other people to rate for a scale of just one to 10 predicated on hotness.”
To a generation of guys and gals in university dorms, this is an innovation for a par with fire together with wheel: Hours upon hours could possibly be squandered, gladly, rating the hotness of other pupils, faculty, superstars and European royalty.
”My spouse recalls posting her image to HOTorNOT her freshman in college, years before we met,” Jim Young, HOTorNOT’s other founder, told ABC News recently year. ”She recalls her dorm mates thinking it had been hilarious and shocking. This woman is additionally for the viewpoint that when compared with the type or sort of content one finds regularly these days on Instagram, Twitter, etc., HOTorNOT appears nearly nutritious.”
Hong and younger once told Newsweek that their inspired concept came to be if the two University of Ca, Berkeley electric engineers disagreed throughout the attractiveness of a woman that is passing. The website they established in 2000 originally had been called “Am we Hot Or Not.” But like “The Facebook,” its name quickly got pared right down to its essence.
“Monster hit” will not commence to explain HOTorNOT’s success: In its very first week, it ended up being getting near to 2 million web page views each day. In a couple of months, it ascended into NetNielsen’s top 25 marketing domain names. Along with income from marketing, it got membership costs from the matchmaking component.
Whenever Hong and younger finally stepped away in 2008 and offered your website, it absolutely was enjoying product product sales of approximately $5 million an and profits of about $2 million, according to techcrunch year. The client, Avid lifestyle Media, apparently paid $20 million for this.
Today what are Hong and Young up to?
Younger told ABC News he’s “busy being truly a brand new dad” to daughters Gemma, 6, and Vivienne, 3. He’s nevertheless in contact with Hong, he stated, nevertheless the two are “not as near even as we had been. I’m from the East Coast now, in Philadelphia. We don’t see most of the Internet that is old crew back San Francisco.”
Hong, in an internet bio, describes himself today being a “father, spouse, buddy, tourist, business owner, and quite often angel investor.” Hong follows a philosophy of exactly exactly exactly what he calls “regret minimization.”
He told ABC Information he understood one day exactly exactly how people that are many they’d traveled as they remained young. “So, I got the travel bug and decided to travel around the world,” Hong said after we sold the company in ’08. He additionally got hitched, possessed a son, then the child, and another son or daughter is on route.
Hong jokingly defines himself as a “house dad” whose priority that is first hanging out along with his children.
“Lately, however, I made the decision I desired to begin making things once more,” he stated. ”therefore, earlier this 12 months, we brushed through to my coding.” He built an application for their children — a child-safe youtube audience. It does not yet have title. “I’m cleansing it now,in the software shop.” he said, “so I am able to put it”
HOTorNOT had a very good impact on the delivery of some of today’s biggest, most effective internet web web sites, Hong stated, noting that YouTube started out as a video clip type of HOTorNOT’s service that is dating. HOTorNOT also helped Zipdash (now Google mobile maps) and Twitter begin by providing them hosting that is free Hong included.
Nevertheless, Anthony Curtis what is seniorblackpeoplemeet, a teacher of mass communications during the University of vermont at Pembroke, questioned how large a legacy HOTorNOT can claim.
“Frankly, I think there’s a small self-aggrandizement in what he’s saying,” said Curtis, discussing the self-estimation. “There were so a great many other things taking place in the past — items that cut ground that is new set brand brand new standards. He had been one of several.”
Curtis reeled down names from yesteryear, including Geocities, FriendsUnited and Myspace. HOTorNOT certainly pioneered the idea of rating things,” Curtis conceded. “Now, there’s a million people rating things.”
Young told ABC Information he has got been tangled up in a few start-ups, some as an angel investor.
Among the list of organizations for which he’s got spent is Dogster (a website that is canine-friendly, that was ”one of my very very very first forays as an angel investor.” He also offers purchased pc pc computer software company Anomaly Innovations, which, based on its internet site, is focusing on Melt, an app that is mobile, “you make friends with individuals by sharing a glimpse you will ever have.”
Young’s other investments add a cosmetic makeup products and beauty that is“social,” Beautylish; Mission Motors (a designer of electric powertrains), and Crunchyroll (a video clip solution for Japanese Anime).
HOTorNOT happens to be owned by or otherwise not Limited. A spokeswoman told ABC Information the website is going to be re-launched quickly, though she declined to give information about just exactly what users can get through the product that is new.