Crowd-sourced decision-making helper Hunch.com is out of private beta today. The site helps people make decisions based on how they answer questions from user-created quizzes (See our hands-on from April). Anyone can create these, however the strength of the site is that they can be linked to credible, outside sources to back up any advice or claims. There's also an algorithm that learns more about you as you use the site. The more it knows, the less of the quiz questions you have to answer to get valid recommendations.
Hunch says you only need to answer 10 sample questions for it to start delivering customized recommendations. However, for some topics, such as personal health or survival situations, it's worth going through the motions of answering each individual question. The efficacy of that depends on how well the quiz was put together though. The way Hunch handles that is to put newly-created quizzes into a holding tank called "the Workshop" where other users can bang on it, and provide feedback or fixes. If enough people like it, it graduates to being a part of the site. Otherwise it gets put into the "scrap heap" where you can see the titles and creators, but not the quizzes themselves.
Certain parts of Hunch--like medical advice, or troubleshooting guides like this bear attack defense one--are one of the service's strong points.
(Credit: CNET)Sites like Hunch get a great deal of traffic from search engines, which is where it may have a leg up on the competition. Since each quiz is made up of multiple questions, there is a higher potential of it showing up in searches that go outside of the main question. Hunch can then drive people to single topics, or topic pages where the site can sell targeted ad units. As it stands, the site makes most of its money off of referrals to commerce sites like Amazon, and sponsored links on result pages.
I'm still not sold on Hunch. For some things, like troubleshooting, or medical advice there's real potential for a system that can weed out irrelevant suggestions based on how you answer questions. However, others like "whether or not you should quit your job," or "what should I eat for lunch?" should be something people figure out on their own, or with the help of friends who don't need to use an algorithm.
Hunch helps you make decisions. For quandaries ranging from "Where should I live?" to "Which blog should I read?" the system plays a question-and-answer game with you, to home in on an answer.
To improve your results, you can also teach the system about yourself by taking a quiz that asks questions like "Would you rather lead or be led?" and "Which 'Sesame Street' character appeals to you?" As you answer these questions, Hunch's algorithm is cataloging your answers and learning more about you.
I started using Hunch after taking the quiz. I asked it which blogs I should read, and whether or not I should switch to a Mac. I'm still not fully sold on Hunch yet, but its results meshed well with decisions I have already made.
For example, I tried the "Should I switch to a Mac" topic to find out if it would tell me to switch to a Mac, three years after I made the decision to do so. Hitch started out asking if my job required me to use Outlook. After answering "no", it asked me if I'm willing to spend more than $1,000 on a computer. I clicked "yes" and then it asked if I would want to engage in computer gaming. I said "no." I answered "no" to the question of whether or not I'm in the design field. It then asked if I make heavy use of Microsoft Excel. I don't, so I clicked "no."
Hunch's design is simple and elegant.
(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)After telling the system that I'm comfortable "going under the hood" to change the computer's components, I answered that I would want a portable computer. Next, I was brought to the best question of them all: "Who do you prefer?" The answers were Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds, or no preference. After saying that I had no preference, Hunch's decision-making algorithm, which analyzes answers, returned my result: I had a 99 percent fit with a Mac. I should switch from a PC.
On more serious topics like "Which camera should I buy?" I found Hunch to be helpful. It asked thoughtful questions about what I'd like in a camera. It even asked what I'd do with it. After answering the questions, it found that the Nikon D80 was the camera for me. I researched its specs and I have to agree--it's ideal for what I'm looking for in a D-SLR.
I also found the "Which credit card should I get" topic useful. Based on my answers, it returned a card containing much of what I'm looking for: a low interest rate and the option to redeem points from a reputable bank.
Creation
All of Hunch's topics come from users. The site allows you to create topics, provide multiple choice answers, and based on those answers, determine results.
When you create a topic, the service finds images from across the Web to add art to it. That saves some time, but the amount of time you spend adding questions and determining results is ridiculous. And if you create a sophisticated topic with many questions, you'll need to run through answers one-by-one to link them to the topic's results. A topic can take up to an hour to create.
Creating a topic takes too long.
(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)The design
Hunch looks good. The most popular and newest topics are there for you to check out on the main page. If you want to find other people on the site and see what they're up to, the "Community" tab has that information. But more importantly, Hunch's simple design makes the site easy to use. You won't have trouble finding desired topics.
Should I use Hunch?
Hunch is fun. At first, you'll probably enjoy browsing through the various topics and maybe even creating some of your own. But after a while, if you're anything like me, you'll gravitate to the more serious topics to help you make decisions. And although there aren't many topics on the site yet, I found that many were relevant to my life. More importantly, they helped me make smarter decisions on important issues, like finances and purchases.
Hunch provides a unique alternative to answers services from Yahoo or Mahalo. And although it's not perfect and it has some growing up to do, it has promise. It could become the "go-to" answer service on the Web with more user involvement.
Once you're lucky, twice you're good? So went the title of a recent book about Web 2.0 entrepreneurs. Pretty soon, we may have an idea whether it applies to Caterina Fake.
Fake, the co-founder of Flickr, announced on her blog Friday afternoon that her new start-up, Hunch, is sending out invitations to try the service, now in beta test.
What is it? I'll hand the reins over to Fake and let her explain:
Look. Decision-making is difficult, and decisions have to be made constantly. What should I be for Halloween? Do I need a Porsche? Does my hipster facial hair make me look stupid? Is Phoenix a good place to retire? Whom should I vote for? What toe ring should I buy?
It's dark and lonely work. Coin-flipping, I Ching consultation, closing your eyes and jumping, postponing the inevitable, Rock-Paper-Scissors, and asking your sister are all time-honored means of coming to a decision--and yet we think there's room for one more: Hunch.
Hunch is a decision-making site, customized for you. Which means Hunch gets to know you, then asks you 10 questions about a topic (usually fewer!), and provides a result--a hunch, if you will. It gives you results it wouldn't give other people.
Will it fly? Who knows, but in the midst of this miserable economic depression, there probably are lots of people out there who feel as if they don't have a clue anymore.
Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, who left the Yahoo-acquired company in June, has a new gig. She posted on her blog on Wednesday that she'll be joining a stealthy New York-based start-up, Hunch, as "Chief Product Officer, board member, and resident Facebook app skeptic."
So what is Hunch? That's under the radar, but we're hearing from a well-placed source that it's a recommendation engine that uses "collective crowd intelligence." That doesn't sound too original, but our source hinted that the technology behind it is pretty top-notch. It's still under development, but when Hunch is finished, it will presumably be able to provide recommendations on just about anything or everything. (Hence the name "Hunch.")
What Fake did say: that she won't be relocating to New York, but will spend a lot of time there; that her husband and Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield isn't involved; that Hunch invites will start to go out in the fall; and that she still doesn't find much time to sleep.
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