GIGA OM — Apr — Hot or Not, the online dating and rating site, is about to end its main revenue stream — $6 per month subscriptions – and focus instead on online ads and transactions, like selling virtual flowers. Why would they kill a service that 15 percent of people who try are willing to pay for, and has resulted in "multi millions of profits per year"? Hong tells us free is the future. Ad pricing has reached the level where an individual or a streamlined small company can make a significant profit. Hong says the online dating industry is reaching a "strategic inflection point." FULL ARTICLE @ GIGA OM

Mark Brooks: Yup, HotorNot is now free. See James blog. I kinda disagree with free being THE way to go. I think we’re going to go through a ‘value crunch.’ Those who don’t deliver will be dead in a year. But there’s still plenty of room left for those charging fair rates for great services. HotorNot is a great service, and $6/month was a fair price. They have been getting ~135k uniques/week for the past year and made ~$5m with ~6 employees. Your comments please…

GIGA OM — Apr — Hot or Not, the online dating and rating site, is about to end its main revenue stream — $6 per month subscriptions – and focus instead on online ads and transactions, like selling virtual flowers. Why would they kill a service that 15 percent of people who try are willing to pay for, and has resulted in "multi millions of profits per year"? Hong tells us free is the future. Ad pricing has reached the level where an individual or a streamlined small company can make a significant profit. Hong says the online dating industry is reaching a "strategic inflection point." FULL ARTICLE @ GIGA OM

Mark Brooks: Yup, HotorNot is now free. See James blog. I kinda disagree with free being THE way to go. I think we’re going to go through a ‘value crunch.’ Those who don’t deliver will be dead in a year. But there’s still plenty of room left for those charging fair rates for great services. HotorNot is a great service, and $6/month was a fair price. They have been getting ~135k uniques/week for the past year and made ~$5m with ~6 employees. Your comments please…