Only use “hunch.com” if you believe the ends justify the means. The website reveals new worlds only to those who will trust it with their personal information.
Hunch peppers users with personal questions to make personal recommendations. These run the gamut from the common — books TV shows movies to the obscure — roller coasters luggage Los Angeles restaurants.
In fact Hunch will probably ask users if they think the ends justify the means but each question a user answers is an affirmation that he or she believes they do. After all why not sacrifice a little privacy for new opportunities to explore?
Hunch provides these opportunities by building a taste profile for each user based on the questions he or she answers. It ultimately aims to map every person to every entity through the Internet. Daunting sure but the site has Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake at the helm Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales on the board of directors and a team of MIT Ph.D.s standing by. In short it’s smart.
After setting up an account — users can login with their Facebook profile — Hunch will ask a few preliminary questions to get the ball rolling. It doesn’t take many answers until the website begins to know you better than you do.
Granted some recommendations are tailored to the tech savvy crowd likely to find and enjoy the website. Gift ideas tend to be nerdy and there are three categories dedicated to computer hardware software and the Internet. But other categories like religions political parties and foreign languages transcend the technical. I learned I might enjoy practicing Taoism joining the Modern Whig Party and studying German. Who knew!?
The fun of the website comes even before you receive these startlingly insightful recommendations. Answering “Teach Hunch About You” (THAY) questions is addictive. With each answer you give you get to see a pie chart that shows the percentage of users who answered as you did. Even when you skip a THAY question Hunch tells you the percentage of users who skipped that question.
Which came first: the chicken or the egg? When you were a child did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up? Is ignorance bliss? Hunch will eventually ask you all of these things. You can always skip the question but answering helps Hunch give your more accurate recommendations. And if you’re willing to trust this website with your answers to these questions you’re sure to discover a new love.