Valleywag: James Hong

HotOrNot founder James Hong engaged

Owen Thomas — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:00:00 PDT

James Hong, who recently sold rating-and-dating site HotOrNot, has announced his engagement to girlfriend Julia Zhang. I wondered if he'd dropped down on one knee at Max Levchin's wedding over the weekend, where he served as best man, but Hong tells me he popped the question a few weeks ago. Hong also celebrated his 35th birthday earlier this week. I guess this settles the question, James: Definitely hot.

Please don't post photos of my wedding to Slide

Jackson West — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:00:00 PDT

Slide founder Max Levchin made longtime lover Nellie Minkova an honest woman on Saturday. The ceremony was held at San Francisco's St. Regis Hotel, and featured HotOrNot cofounder James Hong as best man, with fellow PayPal mafioso Peter Thiel another groomsman. Gracious enough for the couple to refuse gifts besides books and wine, considering how many zeros Levchin can count toward his (and now their) wealth. However, rather ironic that the bride and groom asked guests not to upload any pictures from the ceremonies online for "privacy" reasons.

Levchin's Slide promotes the practice of sharing every precious and not-so-precious moment with the world at large, and that his company has massive amounts of Facebook user data at its disposal thanks to the popularity of the company's Facebook applications. Yes, the rich are different than you and I: They don't buy into the crap they sell us.

L is for Levchin, who never goes slow

Owen Thomas — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:20:00 PDT

Max Levchin, the cofounder of PayPal and the CEO of Slide, measures nearly everything, down to the optimum price to pay for an engagement ring. If he needs a metric for self-importance, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, Sarah Lacy's new book about Web 2.0, provides one. He occupies 78 out of 294 pages, more than anyone else. Here are the index pages for "F" through "M":

Previously:

A is for Adelson, who cofounded Digg

B is for Botha, who sold YouTube big

F is for Fitzpatrick, and "hookers and blow"

HotorNot kindles true love

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:40:01 PST

Founders James Hong and Jim Young sold HotorNot earlier this week, but so far, it's business as usual for the operation. Meaning, the site remains a very effective means of getting a date. Check out Daniya here. She's completely smitten with our secret correspondent and man of mystery, Tips. Sadly for Daniya, Tips prefers a different kind of "dating" site.

HotorNot sold for $20 million, founders now rated 10/10 with the ladies

Jordan Golson — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:32:00 PST

HotorNot.com, the online "dating service" that lets you rate pictures of the opposite sex based on hotness and then connect with the ones you like, has been bought for around $20 million according to TechCrunch. Valleywag alumna Megan McCarthy pours water on that figure, citing cofounder James Hong: there were "very few people on the deal and there's no reason for us to tell anyone" about the price. Founders James Hong and Jim Young will no longer be involved with the company after the sale. Hong said, "It's time to break up with this girlfriend."

Starbucks has few fans on Facebook

Owen Thomas — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:26:09 PST

The premise behind Facebook's Social Ads is the notion that users of the social network will declare their brand loyalty on the site, and thereby opt into targeted ads from some of their favorite corporations. Starbucks, despite a recent dip in store visits after a price hike, serves 44 million customers a week. So you'd think a few of those customers might have admitted to being fans of Facebook, right? Wrong. Facebook's Starbucks product page has all of 59 fans. I think there were that many people in my local Starbucks the last time I bought a latte.

The idea of targeting ads to willing customers is not wholly flawed. HotorNot founder James Hong points out that more than ~~32,000~~ 860,000 Facebook users have declared Starbucks "hot" on his company's Facebook HotLists application. Not shabby at all, but even then, that hasn't hit mass-audience status. Let's say Starbucks advertised to every single one of those users and got them into a coffee shop every day? It still wouldn't really move the needle on sales.

And if Starbucks visits are on the decline, does Starbucks want to preach to the converted — or reach new customers who don't already identify with the brand? Perhaps Starbucks should buy ads that are targeted to people who aren't its fans. Or here's an idea. How about an old-fashioned TV campaign? Last I checked, almost the entire population of the U.S. watches television, while only two-thirds are online.

Sean Kingston gets violent with BitTorrent

Owen Thomas — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:51:11 PDT

Writes HotorNot founder James Hong on BitTorrent's party this week at Fluid, where rapper Sean Kingston took the stage:

Last night, almost as if to out-LA LA, SF company BitTorrent had a small party at fluid to celebrate the launch of their CDN network (brilliant business move!). They apparently arranged in conjuction with a local radio station for Ashanti and Sean Kingston to perform to the tiny crowd. I took a picture of BitTorrent's founders Bram and Ashwin to memorialize the moment, sensing that it denoted SOMETHING.. whether it's a sign that the bubble is getting bigger, or the more likely conclusion that techie work is now getting more main stream and therefore a lot cooler remains to be seen! :)

One wonders if Kingston is familiar with Cohen's written work. Violent misogyny — it's not just for rap lyrics anymore!

(Photo by Pierre Joubert)

Much love to Web 2.0

Megan McCarthy — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:45:27 PDT

The week of Web 2.0 Summit, with the industry converging on San Francisco, seems like as good time as any to throw a shindig. Everyone's in town for the schmoozefest, so you might get to meet quality people who normally avoid the party scene. While my boss hit the Reddit party, I hopped around town to some of the other events. Three, in fact. VC firm True Ventures held a gathering at their offices on Pier 38, a tech industry jam session — for charity, naturally — occurred across town at the Rickshaw Stop, and VCs Eric Chin and Mike Jung held a private party at Fluid for attendees of their intimate Alpha dinners in Woodside. Who needs sleep this week?

True Ventures, the firm which counts WordPress maker Automattic and tech-blog network GigaOm among its holdings, hosted people at its offices on Pier 38 right by the Bay Bridge. Spotted at the party: GigaOm reporters Katie Fehrenbacher and Liz Gannes in conversation with Richard MacManus of ReadWriteWeb. The effortlessly charming Jared Kopf of AdRoll tried to duck having a specific launch date for his ad software company. (Before December 31, he promised.) On my way out the door, I spied First Round Capital VC Josh Kopelman chatting with angel investor Ron Conway, VC Stewart Alsop, and TeeBeeDee's Robin Wolaner. (I recognized Wolaner because she recently blogged about having eye surgery complete with mid-surgery pictures. Ew! In a Discovery Channel can't-stop-looking sort of way.)

I spoke with Kopelman for a moment as he explained the reason why he tried indoor skydiving — the activity which broke his shoulder. His wife thought it seemed safer than the zero-gravity flights currently in vogue with the Sand Hill set. Oops.

Onto the Rickshaw Stop across town, to a music session for hacks and flacks. The open mike jam session starred jounalist rock star Don Clark of the Wall Street Journal and Kevin Maney of Portfolio. Here's a secret for you — whenever Don Clark plays, a gaggle of PR fans mob the audience. Last night? No different. Spotted in the crowd, flacks from big firms, like Voce Communications, and PR consultants aplenty. Ali Partovi, founder of music application service iLike, came out to support the scene. PR goddess Brooke Hammerling appeared and greeted Le Web 3 conference producer Cathy Brooks effusively.

To SoMa and Fluid for the the last stop of the night, where Mike Jung of Panorama Capital and Eric Chin of Bay Partners brought together alums from their Alpha dinners in Woodside for a drink special. Spotted: First Round Capital director Howard Morgan, who spoke briefly about his investment into the Zero-G airlines. (He's been on three of those flights already!) The crowd was full of founders. Among the crowd were Mint's Aaron Patzer, HotorNot founder James Hong, former Greylock VC turned Chirpscreen founder Eve Phillips and the guy blowing kisses above, PBWiki founder David Weekly. Eric and Mike told me that they aim to have their Alpha dinners bring together founders and VCs with a common thread, with the hopes of making connections that pay off. And it's happened. Oren Michels of Mashery reports that his widget-software startup received a check in the midst of one of the Alpha dinners. The Alpha luck might have struck again. At the end of the night, Mike Jung snuck away for a phone call. Rumor was that a deal was in the works. Heard anything about it? Let us know.

Dating site not so hot with advertisers?

Tim Faulkner — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:14:48 PDT

HotorNot.com, the online dating and rating site run by Jim Young and James Hong, is abandoning its experiment in free, ad-supported user profiles and is reverting back to paid memberships. Is this a sign of failure? According to an email from Young and Hong to past and current members, no. Free profiles led to a flood of spammers that were overloading the website — an outcome that members had predicted at the time. Plausible. And yet plenty of other sites offer free profiles while keeping spammers at least somewhat in check. Could this actually be a tacit acknowledgement that all the assumptions that cofounder Hong made in a blog post announcing the move to make HotorNot free three months ago were, well, wrong? That online advertising is not, in fact, HotorNot's future? The full email after the jump.

Dear loyal HOTorNOT star members,
Based on feedback we got from many of you, we have decided to start requiring star memberships on HOTorNOT again. While many of you saw how going free would be good, you also warned us that this would probably lead to more spammers and fake profiles.

You were right, this is exactly what happened. The spammers got aggressive to the point where they were screwing up the system, even causing the "someone wants to meet you" emails to not be sent for periods as long as 5 days.

We don't really regret trying to make the site free so everybody can use it, but it's clear that most of our users believe an inexpensive paid site works better than a free site filled with spammers.

If you left the site after we went free, we hope you'll come back and join again. If you are still here, we hope turning subscriptions back on has a noticable impact for you, helping you meet more people without having your time wasted by the spammers.

thanks, and have fun!

Your friends,
Jim and James
:)

Update: James Hong has responded in the comments.

James Hong sees the future a little late

Tim Faulkner — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 12:40:55 PDT

James Hong, founder of the popular rating/dating service Hot or Not blogs about the future of his company's strategy and products. The short version: social bookmarking, Hot. Subscription dating: Not. It's difficult to question the success Hot or Not has brought James Hong (and his partner Jim) — reportedly "multi millions of profits per year" — but it's much easier to ask: did Jim and James exploit a fad at the right time, and now are playing catch up to the newest fad? The lengthy explanation of how the improved market data and directed advertising of a social network is a business (No way!) and that users like social applications (Get out!) suggest so. Transforming a successful business is Hot; mimicking every other business is Not.

Hot or Notters at loggerheads?

Chris Mohney — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:00:44 PST

A tipster writers in with goss on potential rumblings within the cerebral confines of Hot or Not:

inside scoop is that Hong and the other guy are having problems, can't agree on the direction of the company. Hong wants to take it much further, make it a friendster/myspace thing and throw everything in such as video, blogs, the whole 9. Engineers are leaving and new ones are hard to come by. They may just sell it if they can't work it out in the next 30 days.

Poor Jim Young, always "the other guy" to James Hong. Though normally we assume that everything we're told is true, we're going to cast doubt on this one. Rumor has Hot or Not making a pleasant pile of cash ($6 million a year). We've already mentioned Hong hiring engineers, and though he's certainly ambitious — and probably feels that pals like Paypaller Max Levchin have done better — bailing out now would seem a little premature.

James Hong doesn't hate African AIDS babies

Nick Douglas — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:15:06 PDT

Thanks to a Valleywag post from earlier today, one of sixteen tech superstars has replied to a message from Curt Hopkins.

Curt is raising money for an African AIDS awareness program, and so far, every Valley notable that he solicited (except for Odeo's Evan Williams) ignored his e-mail for two weeks. But, says Curt, someone showed the list of non-responders to Hot or Not co-founder James Hong (#15 on the list).

James (pictured) wrote Curt to explain that he plans his charitable donations through 10 over 100, which James founded. Members pledge to give 10% of their yearly income over $100,000 to charity. So cheers to James, and boo to the rest of you — especially Denton.

Earlier: Internet Millionaires to African AIDS Babies: Drop dead! [Valleywag]
10 over 100 [Official site]

Internet Millionaires to African AIDS Babies: Drop dead!

Nick Douglas — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 07:30:00 PDT

Marketer and pro-blogger advocate Curt Hopkins is a good and reasonable man. Good because he's running the Blogswana project, in which students will help those affected by AIDS in Africa tell the world about their plight. Reasonable because when he asked the following Valley people — people known as good souls with a passion for world-changing technology — for financial support, he expected a few yeses and a few nos.

But from all but Blogger co-founder Evan Williams, Curt didn't get so much as a "screw you." Not all of the non-responders are worth millions, but one suspects they're all better off than the average Central African farmer.

Decent People
Evan Williams (Blogger, Odeo)

People Who Would Rather Buy a Fourth Lexus Than Give a Dime to Keep African AIDS Babies From Going Tits Up
Chris Anderson (Wired)
Ted Leonsis (AOL)
~~Steve~~ Scott Johnson (Ookles, Feedster)
Craig Newmark (Craigslist)
Craig Mundie (Microsoft)
Esther Dyson (I have no idea)
Joi Ito (goes to lots of Blogger conferences, other than that...visits diaper hookers in Kabukicho?)
Michael Arrington (Techcrunch)
Steve Wozniak (Apple)
Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Media)
Kevin Kelly (Wired)
Jason Calacanis (Weblogsinc/AOL)
Nick Denton (Gawker)
James Hong (Hot or Not)
Max Levchin (Slide, Paypal)

The Blogswana Project [Official site]
Donation page [Blogswana Project]

Valleyfolk invade Hollywood

ndouglas — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:33:29 PST

The Hollywood Valley invasion is just a swap: the Valley's taking over Hollywood, one clever indie flick at a time.

The latest little victory: Hot or Not's James Hong joined his pal Max Levchin at the L.A. premiere of Thank You for Smoking. Max and a handful of other former Paypal execs joined producer David Sachs (the former Paypal COO now living in the Pulp Fiction Uma-coke-overdose house) as exec producers.

But that's not the sign of invasion — the real kicker is an attendee's report that "there were more Silicon Valley entrepreneurs (both successful and not) in the premiere audience than stars."

Levchin and company are among good company. Other Valley-to-Hollywood producers include:

Jeff Skoll, eBay co-founder. Exec-produced Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck. He also produced North Country.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founding Google boys. Exec-produced the upcoming Broken Arrows — together, of course.
George Zachary, folks tell me, dabbled in the film biz, but even IMDb doesn't know any titles he's attached to.

And, of course, a host of others, which you'll gleefully ID in the comments.

Is Silicon Valley taking over Hollywood? [James Hong]

Adaptive Path: "I think it might be a beverage."

ndouglas — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 13:33:58 PST

Okay, Adaptive Path (yes, yes, the people in the tub of lust, everyone keeps bringing it up) is one of the few unmockable San Francisco Internet startups. It puts out an actual service, has actual offices (with REAL DESKS. Really), and it's been up and running for five years. Now it's selling bits of itself to Google and hooking up hook-up artists at anniversary parties.

But it still can't get no respect. At the latest AP party, Irina Slutsky of Geek Entertainment TV quizzed notables like HOT or NOT's James Hong and 43 Folders blogger Merlin Mann. The question: "What is Adaptive Path?" The answers: guerillas, life choices, navigating water, and maybe a beverage.

What is Adaptive Path? [GETV]

Valleywag hotties: Hot-or-not that there's anything wrong with that

ndouglas — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 14:33:45 PST

Ladies: Lemme talk to the gentlemen for a minute. Some of them are dealing with tough feelin's right now.

Guys, voting for a Valleywag hottie does not make you gay. "Hotties: Ladies edition" is coming up any day now.

In the meantime, clench those teeth and pick the next hottie — Max Levchin, former PayPal bouncer and current Slide-rider, or James Hong, Hot or Not founder and nearly-naked posterboy. Bonus: they're buds, so either way, this is almost a twofer.

Valley sluts on the Slut-o-Meter

ndouglas — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 10:26:39 PST

Big sister Lifehacker gives us the best "productivity" tool ever: the Slut-o-meter gives a safe-to-unsafe result ratio, or basically a promiscuity rating. Since computers are never wrong about sex, I ran some bold names through the meter for an official Valley Slut Register:

Name	Promiscuity
Terry Semel (Yahoo)	9.19%
Larry Page (Google)	3.93%
Sergey Brin (Google)	2.94%
Steve Jobs (Apple)	8.2%
Ben Brown (Consumating)	5.44%
James Hong (Hot or Not)	35.23%

James Hong, the Hot or Not co-founder with the naked laptop poster, wins the Dirty Dirty Man prize. "Most popular" goes to Steve Jobs, who had 51 searches at last count. Try out the site, but be warned, the server's getting pounded. Hard.

Slut-o-meter Google promiscuity calculator [Lifehacker]
Slut-o-Meter [Slut-o-Meter.com]

Remainders: Today must be naked day

ndouglas — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 00:19:05 PST

James Hong and Jim Young once posted a Hot or Not billboard showing them naked with laptops. The sign was taken down, but James just found it again on MSN Live Local. [James Hong]
Om Malik gets giddy about Demo startups in his latest podcast with Niall. [Om Malik]
Yahoo is the new Visa: The search company starts offering point-based rewards to customers. Startup idea #207: Chinese search farms racking up Yahoo points. [Techdirt]
What's worse than censoring search? Sending a Chinese journalist to jail. But hey, Americans, the freedom to share more Coldplay with your friends? Now that's a fair trade! [Yahoo helps jail dissident, SiliconBeat]
Worship Wozniak? He's a great guy, invented personal computers, sure, but has he made any shiny little video players? Nope. [Wired News]

Classic Valley candids

ndouglas — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:31:04 PST

If D.C. is Hollywood for ugly people, then Silicon Valley is D.C. for the even uglier. (A cheap joke, of course, which we'll contradict with our Valley Hotties contests.) Everyone has a bad photo now and then; the fun is when they get promoted up to the "don't share bad photos" ranks of one tech giant or another. Above is the lovely Sergey Brin in drag, looking as scary as the evil girl in "The Ring." After the jump, shots of Hot or Not founder James Hong and Google VP Marissa Mayer.

James Hong goes for the more traditional Dolly Parton look.

After her 30th birthday party, Marissa Mayer had to be talked out of not wearing these balloons every day at the office.

Got any more for us? Upload them to Flickr with the tag "valleywaggers," or e-mail them to tips@valleywag.com with "Valleywaggers" in the subject.

James Hong [JHong on Yafro]
Sergey Brin [Hot or Not]
Marissa Mayer [Isachin.com]