by Thu Nguyen

Created on: September 28, 2010

Hunch, a smart recommendation engine that utilizes bots and searches to cater to the questions that you'll answer, can surprisingly help you discover what's best in your area. Through the consensus of a large group of users who have answered various questions before you, Hunch can retrieve data that more than 80% of the time have matched users' interests and in turn predict what you'll like.

Founded by Caterina Fake, who also co-founded Flickr, along with Chris Dixon and dubbed as the 'taste-graph' for the entire internet, Hunch looks at your Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare account and learns what it is that you like through your friends. Just from logging in to either Twitter or Facebook, the process starts with about 20 questions on your tastes in a vast number of categories. Then it reveals for you a list of targeted personal recommendations in entertainment such as movies, books and magazines to food and vacation spots and more.

You can then filter out the suggestions for your self personally from the popular choices that are recommended at the bottom of the slider. What you'll always find is Hunch is constantly asking you simple questions like, 'Do you like this?' This will help with recommendations to you for the future.

Thus, you can consider it a smart processor of personal targeted wants. Furthermore, for more specific recommendations, the Hunch Local feature makes use of Google Maps to show you exactly how close your suggestions are.

From there you can see restaurants, grocery stores, spas, museums and much more based upon the questions you've answered. The more you answer questions along the way, the better the recommendation and accurate the results.

For more details, location-based services like Yelp and Foursquare has also been integrated to show profiles of local business within the your vicinity. However, in order for Hunch Local to recommend choices specific to your needs, they need a larger network of Hunches that have been queried. Normally, this is found in a large metropolitan area where more users have answered questions specific to the area before.

The fun thing is Hunch has released their predictor game both on Twitter and Facebook that showcases how well it knows you too. Most likely interested users will find a few things revealed for them through the sophisticated recommendation engine. Take the Twitter Predictor Game or the Facebook Predictor Game.

Finally, users who have a website of their own can also include a survey for more specific recommendations to their readers. Through a Hunch widget, a random question will be generated. Therefore, the possibilities are limitless with what you can do. Not only can you apply the Hunch technology to yourself but to your website to discover what’s best in your area.

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