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January 27, 2008

Sifry Launches “Web Hot Or Not?”

Duncan Riley

46 comments »

fail.jpgFormer Technorati CEO David Sifry has launched Web Hot or Not?, a Hot or Not site for websites. Sifry left Technorati in August 2007.

For the one person reading this who doesn’t know how Hot or Not style sites work, the site presents a website which must be scored between 1 or 10, 1 being not, 10 being hot.

MG Seigler writes that “Quite frankly I’m shocked it has taken this long for someone to come out with this.” I like MG, so perhaps its the intense jetlag talking when I write what the? Sure, on the surface it’s an obvious idea, but the reason why its taken this long for a site like this to appear is because the idea isn’t a very good one.

David Sifry hints that it might be a lark, and if that is the case then we’ll let it slide and recommend people take a look, it should provide seconds, maybe even a minute or two of interest. If, as Sifry suggests “Who knows where it’ll go” (meaning it might take off), I’m off to buy alcohol. Cheers.

Update: you can vote for Web Hot or Not on Web Hot or Not here.

Update 2: another site in this space that does it in a better way is CommandShift3. It’s a not a direct Hot or Not clone but it allows you to rate sites. Hot or Not Designs is another one.

fail2.jpg

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 9:45 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Scott Clark - Finding the Sweet Spot

    January 28th, 2008 at 10:32 am

Comments

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  1. ZOMGPWN!

    January 27th, 2008 at 9:47 pm

    not hot

    next

  2. madcows

    January 27th, 2008 at 9:50 pm

    not hot actualy.. and how to rate it ?

  3. TP

    January 27th, 2008 at 9:52 pm

    unlike hotornot, here there is nothing to bring ppl to this site.

    for a concept like this a destination site will not work, browser plugins will do the trick - think stumbleupon.

    will be used by spammers bigtime.

  4. Duncan Riley

    January 27th, 2008 at 9:52 pm

    madcows
    just updated the post, you can vote for it, on it, here
    http://webhotornot.com/site/webhotornot.com/

  5. tb

    January 27th, 2008 at 9:53 pm

    holy crap it’s like someone flushed techcrunch down the toilet! what a crappy site! (i feel like Mike, whining and complaining now…)

  6. yongfook

    January 27th, 2008 at 9:54 pm

    Jesus Wept.

  7. Duncan Riley

    January 27th, 2008 at 9:59 pm

    yongfook
    lmao.

  8. Uri Schonfeld

    January 27th, 2008 at 10:06 pm

    Isn’t this a weak version of stumbleupon?

  9. Tech For Novices

    January 27th, 2008 at 10:17 pm

    duncan
    your site screenshot is 20 days old

  10. Duncan Riley

    January 27th, 2008 at 10:20 pm

    Tech For Novices
    I took it from their front page in the last 2 hours using Skitch.

  11. Thomas

    January 27th, 2008 at 10:29 pm

    http://commandshift3.com/

  12. Tech For Novices

    January 27th, 2008 at 10:39 pm

    duncan

    i am talking about techcrunch screenshot on their website

    see our link

  13. Imao

    January 27th, 2008 at 10:41 pm

    Duncan,

    This has already been done before - its not new. As @11 posted above -

    check - http://commandshift3.com/

  14. Pratham

    January 27th, 2008 at 10:51 pm

    What about http://hotornotdesigns.com/ ?

  15. Kevin

    January 27th, 2008 at 10:52 pm

    Already exists: http://www.hotornotdesigns.com/

    By Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped

  16. Duncan Riley

    January 27th, 2008 at 10:53 pm

    Not seen commandshift3 before, much better implemented, although to be fair commandshift3 isn’t a direct hot or not clone, which is what I think MG was suggesting.

  17. mikebk

    January 27th, 2008 at 10:54 pm

    Clear violation of Hot or Not trademark.

  18. Duncan Riley

    January 27th, 2008 at 10:54 pm

    Kevin/ Pratham
    much better examples of how it can be done, although as per my last comment, neither alt site is a direct hot or not rip which is what I think MG was getting at.

  19. Boring Market

    January 27th, 2008 at 10:55 pm

    Interesting concept, but lacks functionality.

  20. Don Jones

    January 27th, 2008 at 10:56 pm

    Maybe it will make websites look better - most look terrible…after all these years.

  21. David Sifry

    January 27th, 2008 at 11:07 pm

    Hey, it’s just a fun project, no ned to take it too seriously. It’s fun pushing out lots of code, see what people like, see what sticks to the wall.

    And you’ve got to give credit to my friend Martin Varsavsky at Fon http://www.fon.com/ - it was his R&D guys who did the bulk of the work, so props to them.

    Dave

  22. MG Siegler

    January 27th, 2008 at 11:09 pm

    Duncan - perhaps it is your jetlag or my phrasing, but in my opening remarks I don’t mean to suggest that the world has been utterly lacking such a grand idea, rather that I can’t believe someone didn’t try to take such a simple (and in the past successful) idea and turn it towards websites.

    This makes digg/reddit/propeller/etc seem downright complex - but as I later note this might be more akin to a simplified StumbleUpon.

    That said, I do think the comments - when they come - should be entertaining.

    I do blame your jetlag on my last name though. Remember, ‘I’ before ‘E’ except after ‘C’ :)

  23. Tim Basie

    January 27th, 2008 at 11:13 pm

    siteornot.com has been up for a while…

  24. Roman

    January 27th, 2008 at 11:18 pm

    an important point to consider is that hotornot doesnt make money through ads, they made the majority of their revenue (which is in the multiple millions annually) through the dating service functionality. Not sure how this site is going to make the same money.

    Perhaps this site could set people up who have similar tastes in websites :).

  25. AnonTroll

    January 27th, 2008 at 11:19 pm

    This is so brilliant — what if someone did this for pictures of girls?

  26. EH

    January 27th, 2008 at 11:30 pm

    LOL, talk about a terminal case of “Not Invented Here” syndrome. Looks like TC isn’t even pretending to write posts with even the minimum amount of industry awareness.

  27. Jeremy Horn

    January 27th, 2008 at 11:41 pm

    Geeeeze. This “new” site is just a really bad copy (bad user experience, bad implementation) of CommandShift3 <— AWESOME!

    Yes, I am a fan of CommandShift3… but only because the got the voting and overall product experience (from interaction all the way to fonts) just right.

    Check them out @ http://commandshift3.com

    (while you are at it, feel free to check out my blog too: http://tpgblog.com)

    Jeremy Horn
    The Product Guy
    http://tpgblog.com

  28. Jack

    January 27th, 2008 at 11:47 pm

    This one beats Seesmic!

    And I thought Seesmic was a joke to see if the “conversation” sticks to the wall.

    Martin, both are so NOT!

  29. chrisw

    January 27th, 2008 at 11:49 pm

    How is this news? Some guy (who used to be somebody) makes a lame web site that nobody in his right mind would waste time with. A lot of the crap you’ve been publishing lately Duncan is .. well … crap! Let’s hope something really interesting comes along soon for you to write about.

  30. EH

    January 27th, 2008 at 11:51 pm

    Not only would nobody in their right mind waste time with it, but it’s been done several times before. However, since it’s not the idea, it’s the execution, someone who used to be somebody would probably know more people to be able to find those who aren’t in their right minds. There’s always hope.

  31. Anand

    January 28th, 2008 at 12:18 am

    This is making news just because it is a Technorati CEO doing it. That apart, there is nothing great in the concept..There have been quite a lot of websites that have done this before..

    And moreover, I can get you the script for the site in $29 dollars! crazy that a Technorati CEO bought this one..

  32. Mike Mertz

    January 28th, 2008 at 12:24 am

    Is it just me or has the reporting quality of TechCrunch, well, crunched? Web Hot or Not? Come on….that’s junk. Leave such “finding” to others.

  33. Damian Voltes

    January 28th, 2008 at 12:52 am

    Check http://www.killerstartups.com

  34. Joke Cricket

    January 28th, 2008 at 1:30 am

    ha ha ha , I added my site :)

  35. Technicle

    January 28th, 2008 at 1:36 am

    Great for pageviews… 8-)

  36. Ross

    January 28th, 2008 at 1:42 am

    OK, I went and had a look, rated a few sites.
    Where do I see the results?
    Which sites are the “hottest” ????

    Am I just missing the obvious?

    Ross
    http://www.RossGoodman.com

  37. Mattias

    January 28th, 2008 at 1:56 am

    Not hot at all. Tried it, got bored, never gonna visit that site again.

    Why on earth did you cover this?

  38. martin varsavsky

    January 28th, 2008 at 2:16 am

    GUYS! this site is a not in any way a major venture of David Sifry! It is a spoof on hotornot that Dave and I thought while fooling around in Madrid with nothing to do that took Fon Labs a few hours to put together and we never thought it would get this level of attention!

  39. lawrence

    January 28th, 2008 at 2:32 am

    it’s initially fun, but i highly doubt anyone will return to the site

  40. Baher

    January 28th, 2008 at 2:45 am

    Fun idea and service, I agree with David that it shouldn’t be taken too seriously as a business or anything.. at least now now.

  41. EH

    January 28th, 2008 at 3:22 am

    Ha ha, so obviously this was a vanity post. I guess he couldn’t let that “i need a tix 4 googleplane” panhandle pass without reply.

  42. Jeff

    January 28th, 2008 at 3:30 am

    Interesting concept

    http://www.yupnup.com

  43. Random Guy

    January 28th, 2008 at 11:38 am

    Somehow rating hot chicks is different than rating websites. This idea had crossed my mind when I was creating RandomUp.com

  44. mikebk

    January 28th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

    >>took Fon Labs a few hours to put together and we never thought it would get this level of attention!

    What level of attention do you speak of?

  45. Abhishek

    January 31st, 2008 at 3:45 am

    I think http://spicypage.com does the better job and similar job

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