Dusseldorf-based BattleOut, which just entered public beta, is a new photo site that puts two images head-to-head and asks users to vote for their favorite. It's by no means a new idea, but I do think it has some merit.
The concept is straightforward: you upload an image, apply some tags and hit submit. Your photo then appears in a side-by-side "battle" where users are asked to pick their favorite. You can upload as many images as you like, and your total score and ranking are logged on your profile page. What's more, you can comment on images and send messages to other users. Some noteworthy contests include "Who's Hottest?", "Who's More Crazy?" and "Who has the Yellowest Car?".
The yellow and pink interface is garish to say the least, and this isn't a technological marvel either. But I do think that these extremely visual sites - especially those with edgier images - have real mainstream appeal. HotorNot was popular in its day (although a bit of a fad), and you only have to look at Bix or Singshot to see the potential of online contests. That said, BattleOut seems to lack networking with friends (perhaps because it's about competition?), top-rated lists and other obvious features. But the most glaring oversight is probably the lack of integration with other services - where are the codes for MySpace, Xanga, Blogger, Windows Live Spaces et al? Putting BattleOut into a neat little Flash widget and publishing it across the web would make much more sense than limiting it to a single site.
All in all, it's not a bad service, but I don't think they'll achieve any real success unless they start siphoning off traffic from other social sites.
![[img src="" caption="" credit="" alt=""]](http://sale-online.click/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/battleoutlarge.png){kind=link}