Ever since HotorNot abandoned it’s experiment with going totally free last month, the traffic to its destination site, HotorNot.com, has predictably leveled off. Meanwhile, its application on Facebook is doing pretty well, already accounting for about a third of its daily logins, and 40 percent of it total unique visitors (although the two remain separate services at this point). On Facebook, HotorNot is one of the top 50 apps (No. 45 last time I checked—not a blockbuster app, but respectable), as measured by its 130,461 active daily users (out of nearly 2 million total registered users) on the social network. That compares to millions of casual visitors a month to HotorNot.com itself, where voting is still free and 500,000 people a month login to use its subscription dating service. HotorNot founder James Hong says “the potential of the facebook app for us is on the same order of magnitude as our .com service.”
If ever there was a Website designed as a social application, it is HotorNot. It’s the original voting app, applied to ranking people’s looks. HotorNot took off because it’s simple, voyeuristic, somewhat addictive, and a great time-waster. And for a meaningful percentage of users, it can actually lead to a date (although that feature, which people pay for on HotorNot.com, is not as fully developed yet on Facebook). So with this in mind, I recently asked Hong why it needs to remain a destination site at all. His response:
I have really stopped thinking of HotoNot as a destination site and worry about how many people are using our service no matter where they are. The concept of a destination is so 1999. I think you are going to see a big shift. People will go where they will go. The world is evolving. Sites like HotorNot are starting to see themselves as services and less as destinations.
The same could be said for practically any destination site. The concept of drawing traffic to a central Web destination is blowing up for all but the largest sites. A site today needs to be able to live everywhere on the Web (and not just on Facebook).
But Facebook remains a special case since it is becoming an uber-destination for many different services on the Web. That is why Hong compares Facebook to a mall. If everyone is going to the Facebook mall, then Hong is better off sticking HotorNot in the mall than trying to get people to come to his standalone site. Even if Facebook starts charging rent, Hong is fine with that as long as the rent is reasonable (like any mall landlord, Facebook should know that its stores have to make money too). The same goes for MySpace, which Hong is eager to develop a HotorNot app for once MySpace opens up its platform.
The mall analogy breaks down a bit, though, because the social network landlord could one day create its own HotorNot app and promote that to its members—which would be like a mall owner opening his own clothing store to compete with the Gap, greeting people at the door with flyers as they enter the mall, and charging his store below-market rent. But that’s a risk any Facebook (and, soon, MySpace) developer has to take. Then, of course, there’s the fact that malls tend to lose their foot traffic as soon as a newer one opens up down the road.
Still, why not just ditch the destination site altogether if HotorNot is more powerful as a social-networking application? (On Facebook, for instance, it’s easier to vote on how attractive all your friends are and their friends, rather than be presented with total strangers). It is not hard to imagine one day soon when more people will access HotorNot through Facebook, MySpace, and other social networks than through the site itself. HotorNot should just become a widget company or sell itself to Slide, right? After all, Slide (which Hong happens to be an investor in) is in a better position to serve ads across widgets and Facebook apps since it owns a network of the most popular ones.
It all sounds good, except for a few things. First, HotorNot makes its money from subscriptions, not ads. When Hong tried to make his dating service ad-supported, the spam level became unacceptable. Second, it not yet clear what kind of landlords Facebook or MySpace will become (see above). Third, the question remains whether or not a social-networking app is more useful inside the context of that social network, or if there is power in bridging together different people from different sites. A single app spread across many sites could benefit from greater network effects than many apps that are each stuck in a separate social-networking silo. Right now, the HotorNot Facebook app is built on a separate system than the main site because that was the fastest way to get the app up and running. But that won’t always be the case. Once you cycle through everyone in your social circle, then what?
These are issues that any startup developing a Facebook app must grapple with. In the end, the most successful social-networking apps will find clever ways to both bring in data from similar apps living elsewhere, while at the same time still hooking into the various social networks so that they seem like they were customized just for you and your friends.
So is MySpace launching it’s platform this week or what? I hope it is, it’ll be very interesting to see what happens.
hotornot is not hot anymore. it’s not even a hot app. this becomes a standard feature on many sites. hong should think of creating a next generation date site better than plentyoffish. otherwise, just let the site go to the deadpool.
I wonder if people would want to rate their friends – isn’t one of the “hot” parts of the site the ability to rate people you don’t know?
Though Facebook might be interesting – esp. if they could make it anonymous.
These days, it’s so easy to create a destination and a widget, there’s little reason to pick one.
I like the idea of “Geek or Weak” a whole lot better.
This is weak.
and yes — I’ve offered another gem — geekorweak.com is not registered yet.
One of the biggest features we added to our site was a rating from 1-10 on photos around the site. It’s not the same, as you get a random other picture on rating the first one.
In fact, even though we’re a question answer site, the photo rating feature is used 2/3 as often as people answer questions. Eg, 5K photo ratings month to date, and 7K+ answers.
Interesting stuff.
Anyone following Hong’s blog and some of the techcrunch posts on their change of business model and then back again, should see quite clearly that Hong and his partner are no longer the mavericks some hailed them to be. Or at least in the running of their HotorNot brand – if nothing else.
His quotes that state “..the world is evolving..” and “..the concept of a destination is so 1999…”, are further examples that he can only state the
obvious and has nothing new to offer anyone writing a blog post on him or HotorNot.
With vision so muddy, HotorNot is destined to do a slow death which has already started.
Next……
Like someone already said, HotorNot has not been hot in a long while. I believe it has more to do with most portals having such feature as a standard.
I bet they were getting some pretty good acquisition offers while they were still hot – he should have cashed out. IMHO
I hope Facebook learns a thing or two here and just stop it with their multi-billion dollar valuation before the next shiny thing comes along.
P.S. Anyone interested in reviewing my new startup idea?
*WARNING!* It’s adult related and not for the faint hearted.
That’s one hot photo!
Quickest way to kill a good idea, coloborate with Mac users!
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com
Hot or Not is getting stale. That’s why I prefer Who’s the Hottest? It’s a Facebook app that lets users compare people and say who’s hotter, then lists the hottest people. It’s Hot or Not meets Digg.
http://apps.fac...ook.com/hottest
Yes
RIP HotorNot.com
Welcome HottieMe.com
Coming to browser near you in Nov. 07
lol @ HottieMe.com. Good luck with over throwing HotorNot.com. I think it would require tons of marketing on your side to get it up and going.
need some really useful app on facebook.
With the amount of apps growing on facebook, it s not far from what myspace is now.
For an active user, Its like a full time job, to keep answer/ignore all those friend requests, and pokes, and what not.
I’d say keep both, the web and the app. The app is more like a bonus but hotornot is dying and it will keep dying. I think it’s advertising has done very bad, I hadn’t heard there name in a long time.
Nice insights on the challenges that facebook app developers face.
It is interesting to hear people clinging to the destination site argument. They can’t let go of their baby and send it off to college and travel the world (facebook, myspace, hi5, etc).
Rodney Rumford
I have developed a blogging website using PHP that is actually a Bangla Blog which covers lots of features of Web 2.0. But I cant figure it out, which key parts of Web 2.0 it have. Can you figure it out?
facebook app subscribers are misleading since I don’t think it counts backwards, only forwards. Meaning if someone installs and then removes it, it still counts. I know i’ve installed a few cockamamie apps that some shithead coworkers suggested I try.
Facebook is really a shitheap, overall.
dude, when are you going to learn the difference between “its” and “it’s”? You keep making the mistake. Don’t make another post until you’ve learned the difference.