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June 17, 2009

I've got a hunch you may not like Hunch

Web-based decision-making tools like Bing and Hunch are suddenly all the rage. Whatever happened to making up our own minds?

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In the future, we won't have to make any decisions on our own. All we'll need is a browser and a lot of time on our hands. That's where things seem to be headed, at least.

[ InfoWorld's Robert X. Cringely declares, in the Google-Bing wars, the fear stops here | Stay up to date on Robert X. Cringely's musings and observations with InfoWorld's Notes from the Underground newsletter. ]

First, of course, there is Bing, which if nothing else has stuffed the term "decision engine" down our gullets whether we wanted it there or not. Now comes Hunch.com. Built by Flickr's Caterina Fake and a bunch of computer geeks from MIT, Hunch apparently exists to help us figure out what we already know, even if we don't know we know it yet. From the site's description:

It's a cruel world out there. 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.

In 10 questions or less, Hunch will offer you a great solution to your problem, concern or dilemma, on hundreds of topics. Hunch's answers are based on the collective knowledge of the entire Hunch community, narrowed down to people like you, or just enough like you that you might be mistaken for each other in a dark room. Hunch is designed so that every time it's used, it learns something new. That means Hunch's hunches are always getting better.

OK, I thought, I'll bite.

Hunch starts by asking an endless series of nosy questions trying to find out more about you. (I got through 238 of them before I gave up, exhausted.) The questions range from the mundane (Do you live in a city? Do you rent or own your home?) to the bizarre (Do you sing in the shower? Have you ever used a fake ID?) to the truly bizarre (Do you believe in alien abductions? Do you find clowns scary?)

For the record: Of course I believe in alien abductions, and I think anyone who doesn't find clowns scary is either a) related to Ronald McDonald, or b) scary. As for the rest, well, it's none of your beeswax.

For all this hard work, Hunch tells me I've earned 559 Banjos. And no, I do not have one friggin' clue what that means, so please don't ask.

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nitrobob 17-Jun-09 10:42am
There is no way I could be enticed into answering such an endless stream of questions, given the fact that I know nothing about the people behind this project, their motives and whether there is any reason to place that much personal information in their hands. Nobody can work for free so I suspect that there is a way that all of the information that Hunch gathers can and will be monetized at some point. It is a shame that we must be on guard whenever we utilize the Internet, but that is simply the reality that we face, given all of the scams and criminal activities that people have fallen for recently. Nonetheless, I'll bet a dollar to everything you own that there will still be a ton of people who will willingly participate in Hunch without ever questioning why they have to jump through those hoops and what the implications might be. That's why I am very reserved whenever it comes to hopping on the latest social networking craze. And frankly, this one sounds rather lame at this point. Sorry, all of you brainiacs from MIT, I think you may have missed the boat on this one. Of course, if your project falls flat on its face, I have a Hunch that you will blame the public for not "getting it".
cdixonhunch 17-Jun-09 3:14pm
1 reply
This is Chris Dixon, co-founder of Hunch. I have a few points of clarification which might explain some of the experiences you had: * Each of the 2,500 (and growing) number of decision topics on Hunch contains no more than 10 questions which lead to a concrete result. Here's the list of topics: http://www.hunch.com/browse-topics/. But it sounds like you only started exploring individual topics after answering a large number of the optional "Teach Hunch About You" (THAY) background questions. * Users can answer as many of the THAY questions as they want, which helps personalize the results, but it's not necessary to answer any of them to use Hunch. * Hunch isn't meant to solve emotional decisions for people who have no friends; the usefulness of the site comes in organizing complex information about topics that not everyone understands perfectly: Which open source license should I choose? What camera should I buy? Do I need an in-house HR person? No single person has perfect knowledge of the world; Hunch aims to let people have expertise share it with people who don't. * Selling personal data is not only of no interest to us, it's not a smart business model. We have a much stronger revenue model of earning affiliate revenue when someone purchases some of the products or services Hunch proposes. This is similar to the way Google monetizes qualified search traffic for people ready to make a purchase decision. If our assurances aren't enough, users can delete their accounts and all its associated data at any time (in the Account Settings page). * You're right that Hunch will only get better over time as more users contribute to it. The topics are created by users and some of them are very accurate - and some not yet so much. For example, in your "Should I get a divorce example?", in a few clicks you could have taught Hunch that that's a dumb question. It's the Hunch community, not us, that makes the site useful and smart over time. For your readers who are interested in other perspectives on Hunch, I'd encourage them to check out our press page: http://www.hunch.com/info/press/ Thanks!
JIMTHEBOSS 22-Jun-09 9:40am
1 reply
FRIST OF ALL IT SPLELLED THEY NOT THAY THRID WAHT DOES GETTIG DRIVOCED HVAVE TO DO WITH BOUYIG CAMMERAS
falsecut 23-Jun-09 10:06am
First off JIMTHEBOSS, knock it off with the all caps. Second, your post contained 19 words, and you misspelled 9 of them. But then you amuse us with your attempt to teach us to spell. THAY is an abbreviation or more properly an acronym. And then you further amuse us by going from your "frist" point to the "thrid" point, skipping whatever your second point was (thanks for being merciful). Please go to whatever school you attended (if any) and immediately demand your money back.

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