James Hong, on selling HotOrNot
Iconic dating site HotOrNot has sold to a little-known media company called Avid Life Media, HotOrNot cofounder James Hong tells me.
HotOrNot was a standout success when it began in 2000, when many web entrepreneurs were nursing wounds from when the dot-com bubble burst. Its simplicity, subsequent viral growth to millions and ability to keep people returning inspired hits including YouTube as well as Facebook.
You saw a photo of a girl or guy, and you rated… Continue Reading
Crunchyroll, for pirated anime content
Crunchyroll, a sharing site primarily for anime, is attracting attention — not only for its content and fast-growing popularity, but also for its revenue model.
Rather than just putting up ads, Crunchyroll accepts “donations” in return for providing users with higher video quality. The site makes a respectable $75,000 a month in revenue, according to Techcrunch. But it’s also getting money for copyrighted anime content uploaded to the site (much of which apparently uploaded by the… Continue Reading
Surprise: Facebook apps may help grow home sites
Slide, Rockyou and HotorNot, three companies with the largest number of users on Facebook, are showing continued traffic growth on their own sites.
The finding, reported by Quantcast, a service that tracks traffic trends for Web sites, suggests that sites failing to embrace Facebook may be missing out on potential growth.
For some, this is also encouraging evidence that Facebook’s platform, launched in May, isn’t necessarily weening users entirely off their own Web sites. While Facebook allows… Continue Reading
LinkedIn lets you see who is viewing your profile — sort of
updated
LinkedIn, the Mountain View Calif. business social networking site, has created a new feature that lets you see who is viewing your profile.
The feature was frequently requested by LinkedIn’s users. The company has tried to balance transparency with privacy concerns, with the result that the feature is limited in its usefulness.
For instance, I’ve had twenty people view my profile over the last month (see screen-shot below), and the list includes people from the “Porter… Continue Reading