Got A Hunch?
Recently I’ve been looking around at the different search engines on the internet hoping and believing that there was more to search than the big three of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Having looked at the very serious Wolfram Alpha a little while ago and more recently the oddly named Duck Duck Go, I have now been alerted to Hunch.
Maybe it’s just coincidental after the release of the new Microsoft search engine Bing labelling itself as a “decision engine”, but that is exactly what Hunch describes itself to be as well. The only difference maybe is that Hunch will really help you make those decisions.
The idea of Hunch is that you type in a question that you would like help answering and then it will ask you a further set of leading questions to decipher what it thinks the correct result or answer is. It could be described as an advice engine as it tries to guess what it thinks you would like and then offers several options.
Hunch is based around its own community who create their own questions and answers to supply the engines database. Then using its own special algorithm developed specifically for Hunch it seeks to answer the questions that are being posed. According to their website, the Hunch algorithm always asks “what can I ask next which will lead to the best possible result?”
There is no doubt that it will be a continuously evolving search engine as more information is inputted into its data banks but for now it still manages to provide a fun searching experience. In fact it will often leave you wondering why you hadn’t thought of that question earlier in your own decision making process.
The site is well laid out in the obligatory dominant white background and simple text that shows your answers in a clear and neat format. Easy to navigate around with some good information on how it all works and use of images, Hunch delivers aesthetically a very pleasing search experience.
It is also a search engine that can become quite addictive and I soon found myself inputting in all kinds of questions to see how they would turn out. The answers to a query generally produce a wild card answer as well, something from left field that you probably hadn’t thought about which adds to the fun.
Part of my research led me to type in, “What should I have for lunch today?”. It started off asking me questions such as; “Will I be eating at my desk? Am I vegetarian? Will I be partaking in any activity later in the day?”.
After a couple more questions it decided that a sandwich would be the ideal choice for me. That was all the confirmation I needed. As the people at Hunch say, “It is a search engine that will help you make smart decisions.”
Coming out almost as soon as the publicity for Bing went into full swing Hunch is taking a piggy back ride on the exposure about decision engines which should be a great assist for them to start off with.
