The site was originally called 'Am I Hot or Not'. The site was a technical solution to a disagreement the founders had one day over a passing woman's attractiveness. It was inspired by some other developers' ideas. Both graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in electrical engineering, with Young pursuing a Ph.D at the time.

The site was founded in October 2000 by James Hong and Jim Young, two friends and Silicon Valley-based engineers. Users would submit photographs of themselves to the site for the purpose of other users to rate said person's attractiveness on a scale of 1 - 10, with the cumulative average acting as the overall score for a given photograph.

'Hot or Not' was a significant influence on the people who went on to create the social media sites Facebook and YouTube. The domain is currently owned by Hot Or Not Limited, and was previously owned by Avid Life Media. The site offered a matchmaking engine called 'Meet Me' and an extended profile feature called 'Hotlists'. Hot or Not, is a rating site in the Netherlands that allowed users to rate the attractiveness of photos submitted voluntarily by others. ( July 2013) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. This article possibly contains original research.

Hot or not