I've been on the beta test, but so far it looks like a solution in search of a problem.
We think that you will love Hunch. It may not be awesome yet -- a lot of people have to contribute to it before it knows much of anything. But it will be awesome later. Love it anyway. Love it now.
I'm confused - how is this helping me make a decision?
I answered a bunch of question until it told me I was finished, and then gave no further instructions. I went back to the homepage, and was presented with yet more questions.
I tried to start asking it a question, i.e. "what pet should I get?", using the top right search box. However, I can't get it to return results for anything, even the generic keyword "pets".
On top of all this, the obviously fake demographic data means I'm not getting any value whatsoever out of the experience.
I'm torn. I hate those annoying quizzes, but at least this site is doing something useful with the results. They are collecting demographic information, building statistical models, etc. To me, it's kind of like reCAPTCHA. If you're going to have a necessary evil (CAPTCHAs or people addicted to silly quizes), you might as well "help humanity" in the process...
I'm also quite impressed with the presentation. It seems like a really solid app.
Reminds me of my AI class assignment last year in CLIPS. I'm guessing there taking the same concepts that have been around for a long time and applying them to a very general setting with a healthy dose of people power to constantly improve it.
Hunch is fun to play with. However, it really needs more data and more people to be truly helpful when it comes to decison-making. I say, give it some time. If it catches on, it could be really cool.
looks really cool. I was able to answer a bunch of questions, half way through got an error The questions (at least the ones I answered) were quite relevant.
They also have a API. Would be interesting to see what mashups can be done with the API.
edit:
One of the decision topics I tried:
Should I buy an Apple iPhone or a Palm Pre?
The questions were relevant, and I found this quite interesting:
Do you have long nails that would impair your being able to use the touchscreen effectively?
Whats the best profession for me ? - 1. Web Developer 2. Computer Engineer 3.Engineer ... , phew, I am glad to know that hunch,com vindicates my decision to be a computer programmer. If the results were different...
So I did the where do you want to go on vacation one and got back Tokyo and Italy, which really are my top two choices to vacation next time I have the chance. A similar deal happened with movie suggestions.
Hunch seems like it's really good for telling you what you already know, without directly asking you your opinion about it. Besides that it seems to have an interesting side effect of psychological confirmation (I felt it too), even though rationally, all it means is that Hunch found a pattern of association that you fit into.
I mean, it's not like it actually gave you any _reason_ that you should be a web developer or that I should go to Italy...
I'd say it's pretty good considering how long it's been up. It'll only get better. I typed in 'price of fish' and it came up with a list of fish & chip shops. So not totally useless.
Some of the questions are things like "what pair of men's sunglasses should I buy?" I'm guessing that the products at the end are paid placement (or will be) and there will eventually be a click to buy button.