Faked in
I seem to spend a heck of a lot of time doing things that are somehow connected to Caterina Fake: I post photos to Flickr, I answer questions on Yahoo! Answers, and I’ve just signed up for Hunch, a new “decision engine.”
If you immediately think “A what?” here’s something of an explanation:
Hunch is a new concept, but it’s probably best described in terms of the familiar. Fake says it’s a hybrid of several different ideas, similar in some ways to both Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers, but different in others. The analogy she uses is of a high school student asking questions of a Guidance Counselor. “Hunch gets you to a decision better when you don’t already have a decision in mind,” she says. “It can show you the right questions to ask.”
Greg Sterling’s companion article goes into detail on how Hunch works. In short, it helps users make decisions by guiding them through a series of questions on their chosen topic… After answering a series of questions (all created and modified by Hunch users), Hunch provides a recommendation based on your answers, on what it knows about you from other activity on the site, and from the likes and dislikes of similar Hunch users.
This differs substantially from Yahoo! Answers, in which you get responses directly from other Y|A users, who may or may not have learned anything in the time they’ve been there.
And while I’ve answered several hundred questions on Y|A, I expect I’ll be doing my actual asking at Hunch.
McGehee »
23 June 2009 · 4:23 pm
At the risk of being accused of impostiture by a fellow Dustbury commenter, I’m unimpressed. After asking me all those questions about myself it didn’t even manage to come up with any questions for me to ask, to which I cared to know the answers.
Maria »
23 June 2009 · 6:25 pm
Pretty cool post. I just came across your blog and wanted to say
that I have really liked reading your blog posts. In any case
I’ll be subscribing to your blog and I hope you post again soon!