The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (hotornot.com)

Member Name: wiggglypufff

Product:	hotornot.com
Date:	26/05/05 (739 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Kills a few minutes boredom, can be a laugh

Disadvantages: Gets tiresome, your pic could be submitted by someone else, bruised egos from low raters

Pretty people of the world unite. Here’s the perfect site for you. If you think your ego can take it, submit a picture of yourself and let the world tell you if you are Hot or Not.

Formerly called amihotornot, but now known simply as hotornot, it is a site that displays pictures of people and allows them to be given a rating of anything from 1 to 10 depending on how ‘hot’ you think the person is. A rather bizarre idea you might think, but there are plenty of heavily rated pics there so obviously a lotta people like it. The site currently claims “Over 10 Billion votes counted and 16,800,000 photos submitted.”

When you visit the site you are greeted with the first picture. Above it are a couple of drop down boxes from which you can filter your viewing - choose to view pictures of men, women or both, and specify an age group if you wish. Above that is the rating bar.

Once happy with the gender and or age selection you’ve made, simply rate the piccies you’re shown. You can rate anything between 1 and 10, with 1 meaning you don’t consider them at all hot (i.e. they may be better placed at Mingers.com) and 10 meaning you think they are very hot (i.e. you find yourself there and need to boost your ego).

After rating, the picture moves to the left hand side of the screen to make way for the next one to be displayed. The previously viewed picture then displays above it the rating you gave it, the average rating it has so far received, and how long ago it was since that person last logged in to check their score.

On some of the pictures (once moved to the left) you can click to meet the person. To use this facility, you must also have submitted a pic of yourself. It’s a bit hit and miss though, contact can only be made if that person stumbles across your picture and clicks to meet you too. The chances of that, I would imagine, are very slim but it’s a novel idea all the same.

Browsing the pictures is free for all, but to submit a picture requires a brief registration process to be completed. Choose a username and password, state your gender, rate yourself, and upload your piccie or supply the URL for one that’s online already. The fact that pictures can be taken from net addresses means of course it’s very easy to submit people without their knowledge. That said, they’d probably never find out anyway ;o)

While viewing pictures you get the occasional pop up window asking you to visit the site sponsors, and the odd survey to fill in. It’s a little annoying, but not a major problem. The site is likely to be of limited longevity to most, so I’d imagine it unlikely you’ll be there long enough to encounter many.

Download speed of the pictures vary a bit due to differing sizes – with broadband it’s reasonably spontaneous. I first came across the site when I was on dial-up access but even then all the pictures did open, and none took too long to display. There was, however, the odd one or two that I would’ve been quite happy not to see at all; nothing untoward, pornographic or obscene, just some people that were most definitely not hot.

There is merchandise available, but with shipping costs at over $20 for delivery of orders to the U.K. I sadly resigned myself to the fact that I would never be able to don a Hot or Not t-shirt, or slurp my coffee from a Hot or Not mug.

All in all, it’s not a bad site. Speed is okay, navigation simple, and there’s a comprehensive F.A.Q. section should you really wanna know more. It’s unlikely to keep you amused for hours; the more likely scenario is that you’ll probably have had enough after a few minutes, unless you’re searching for that someone special, in which case, good luck (you may well need it). All the same worth a look even if just to crush a few egos by rating people lower than they deserve just for the sheer hell of it.... not that I’d do that of course ;o)

http://www.hotornot.com

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