Quick review of Hot or Not extension Restyleme (via Killerstartups).
Basically you upload a picture and people give you the thumbs up or thumbs down across a range of categories like hair, accessories and smile. So it’s not saving the planet, but it is a little bit of fun and you might get some honest advice about those jeans you’ve been wearing for 3 years. Simple application with quick pick up and easy concept.
They had a couple of usability issues around mystery meat links and also some confusing terms. Plus they yelled pretty loudly that I needed to login but didn’t give me an option to do it or to join.
Social elements are pretty weak. A sign of all web apps these days thinking they should have social. Actually, this would work amazingly as a Facebook app. Dump a Facebook picture in and my friends can rate it.
On the monetization side, they do have some reasonable advertising options by upselling you the things that people tell you need some work. They may also get into dating like Hot or Not did.
Popularity: 44% [?]
2 responses so far ↓
1 RestyleMe // Mar 27, 2008 at 7:18 am
Hi Nick. We saw your review on Google. That was quick! We just showed up on KillerStartups yesterday. As the makers of the website, we’d like to clarify a few points you mentioned:
Even though it may not look like it at first, our website is actually a lot different than Hotornot type sites. We did several things that have never been done before (as far as we know) on a fashion / photo rating site:
1) Voting based on style categories: The web is full of 1-10 photo rating sites but that doesn’t tell you much. We actually give the user an idea of why they are stylish (and if not, what they can do about it).
2) The mystery dots you talk about in your review are actually marked on the photo by our users while voting. The green dots are positive, the red dots are negative opinions. So you don’t like someone’s jacket? Click on the jacket on the photo before clicking your “change clothing style” icon. This is a very simple but extremely powerful voting method we haven’t seen anywhere else.
3) We allow our users to tag their clothing by selecting regions on the photo. Besides showing off their stuff, this allows the users to see how much people like their X-brand shirt because users can mark on the photos by clicking as I explained above. This is again very powerful and something we haven’t seen anywhere else.
We always need to improve on usability and explaining the site’s features better of course. Thanks again for taking time to write a review. Feel free to give our website another go when you have time — we have a lot more than meets the eye.
RestyleMe Team
2 Mick // Mar 28, 2008 at 7:46 am
Thanks RestyleMe Team. Come on - gotta give your real name when f/blogging (flogging on a blog).
Mick (not Nick)
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