I stumbled upon a social media website today, www.hunch.com that functions like a search engine to help you make decisions.  The site relies on the theory that absent the ability to ask an expert for information when making a decision the collective advice of many, many people will find the proper solution.  The unique twist to Hunch is that the computer learns about you as you go and makes suggestions tailored to your preferences.  Imagine that the Governor of Georgia, Sonny Perdue, needed to make a decision about water restrictions.  There is a low likely hood that he would want to know what the Governor of Alabama thought about his decision.  Hunch is set up to learn about those preferences and feeds you suggestions based on that premise.

This is nothing new, Pandora, the internet radio station, has been using suggestions to filter songs for a few years now.  This does, however, seem to be the first time that a web site is attempting to influence decisions based on collective advice.

Hunch put together by a bunch of self-described "bunch of MIT nerds" who were interested in machine learning.  The theory is that the longer that Hunch is used the more useful the information it will provide.  There is even a disclaimer:

I spent a few minutes wandering around the site and generally the information is good.  True to the above disclaimer it isn't awesome yet, but I do see the potential.  The most interesting feature and in my opinion the best feature would be the ability to see what people who aren't like you would do in a given situation.  This would be a gold mine for marketers looking to find out what diametrically opposed groups would choose.  This could help them figure out how to target differing groups of people with laser sharp accuracy.

You are encouraged to create topics (which are really just questions someone might ask) then you select or create questions that a person might use to walk down the path to getting an answer.  You then provide an answer to the question and create a path to the answer through your pre-selected questions.  (I know, its a little difficult to read, it was difficult to type.)

The best way to experience it is to just go to the site and sign up.  (There are invitations, but you don't need one to get started.)

Here is my first topic attempt:

What do you think about Hunch?  Could you see yourself using this type of service on a regular basis? Tell us in the comments!