[koolmoe]

When a site begins as one incarnation with a small user base and later transforms into something else when the user base has grown, it suggests that critical mass is necessary to make the transformation happen. If HotOrNot started out trying to build a dating site, they'd have been foolish not to consider scaling early on.

[nostrademons]

Right, the point is that if HotOrNot started out as a dating service, they wouldn't have gotten any users at all. People join a dating site to find other users to date - they only find other users to date if the site already has users. So you end up with a chicken-and-egg problem where everybody is waiting for everybody else to join. I'm curious how other dating sites have solved this - my guess is that they either tapped a large network of friends or they recruited users from an existing singles community.

HotOrNot actually faced a terrific scaling battle anyway: http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2001/05/hong/. They got far more users by starting as a rating site than a dating site.

[koolmoe]

While I agree with your point, it's not the point of the blog entry:

"...if it doesn't work when you've got one, it's extremely unlikely to work when you have dozens."

Also, there is no mention of the difficulty of gaining users, merely that your idea won't be any better when you've got them.

That's clearly not true in several cases.