Hot or Not - Predecessors and Spin-offs

Predecessors and Spin-offs

Hot or Not was preceded by the rating sites RateMyFace, which was launched a year earlier in the summer of 1999, and AmIHot.com, which was launched in January 2000 by MIT freshman Daniel Roy. Despite the head starts of its predecessors, Hot or Not quickly became the most popular. Trademark threats from AmIHot.com eventually forced AmIHotOrNot.com to change its name to HotOrNot.com in 2001 and buy AmIHot.com in 2004. Since AmIHotOrNot.com's launch, the concept has spawned many imitators. The concept always remained the same, but the subject matter varied greatly. The concept has also been integrated with a wide variety of dating and matchmaking systems. In 2007 BecauseImHot.com launched and deleted anyone with a rating below 7 after a voting audit or the first 50 votes (whichever is first).

Variations on the Hot or Not concept include voting via a Condorcet method where a candidate is compared with other candidates in a series of pairwise comparisons in order to gauge their popularity. MyTypeOfGirl.com uses a 4 way comparison of candidates to gauge their popularity and show a 'type' match for candidates who most closely match the average preferences shown by the user making the choices.

A website based on the opposite idea of the Hot or Not concept was introduced in the spring of 2011, with the creation of CreepOrCreep.com a site where voting was not based on attractiveness but on creepiness.