To a generation of guys and gals in school dorms, this was an invention on a par with fire and the wheel: Hours on hrs could be wasted, happily, rating the hotness of fellow students, faculty, celebrities and European royalty.
"My wife recalls posting her image to HOTorNOT her freshman year in school, many years ahead of we met," Jim Young, HOTorNOT's other founder, told ABC News recently. "She remembers her dorm mates thinking it was hilarious and surprising. She is also of the viewpoint that compared to the type of material a single finds routinely these days on Instagram, Twitter, and so on., HOTorNOT seems almost wholesome."
Hong and Youthful as soon as informed Newsweek that their inspired notion was born when the two University of California, Berkeley electrical engineers disagreed in excess of the attractiveness of a passing female. The site they launched in 2000 originally was named "Am I Sizzling Or Not." But like "The Facebook," its name quickly received pared down to its essence.
"Monster hit" does not begin to describe HOTorNOT's good results: In its 1st week, it was receiving shut to 2 million webpage views a day. In a few months, it ascended into NetNielsen's top 25 promoting domains. In addition to income from marketing, it got subscription fees from a matchmaking component.
Cracking the on the internet dating code
When Hong and Younger lastly stepped away in 2008 and offered the internet site, it was enjoying product sales of about $5 million a yr and income of about $two million, in accordance to TechCrunch. The buyer, Avid Lifestyle Media, reportedly paid $20 million for it.
What are Hong and Younger up to nowadays?
Young told ABC Information he's "occupied currently being a new dad" to daughters Gemma, 6, and Vivienne, 3. He's even now in touch with Hong, he mentioned, but the two are "not as near as we have been. I am on the East Coast now, in Philadelphia. http://emailset.operationquickmoney.training/52d968623ef37
