New Web Site Has a Hunch

A new entry onto the Web 2.0 stage made its debut today. New York-based Hunch, created by Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake (yes, that is her real name), gets to know its users via a series of 42 questions. Some of them are simple, such as "Where do you live?" Others require more thought and aim to discover what makes you tick, for example: "Alien abductions. Are they real or fake?"

Billed as a "decision-making" site on its media fact sheet, the site actually aims to help its users make such crucial decisions as "What should I be for Halloween?" without relying on those error-prone homo sapiens. After creating a profile using the preliminary set of questions, Hunch users can read their tea leaves regarding a wide variety of inquiries by answering fewer than a dozen, more-targeted questions. Like Netflix and Amazon, the suggestions become more accurate the more information you provide to the all-knowing machine.

The About Us section of the site offers a concise description:

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.

No one will argue that good advice is valuable, but is Hunch really worth $2 million in venture capital funding? Heaven forbid I should try to answer that one with my soon-to-be-obsolete mammalian brain.