Hunch launched today. For those of you who missed it it’s the latest Web 2.0ish venture founded by Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake. With a pedigree like that it’s got to be good no?
I tried it out but didn’t get very far.
1. The first thing I tried was setting up a profile. I wish companies were not so restrictive on what they’ll allow in your profiles. Hunch is a lot more restrictive than Flickr in terms of what they will allow. To make things easy, I did what I normally do and just cut and pasted my existing Flickr profile into Hutch. Hutch first rejected it because I had more than 2,000 characters. So I edited it down to below 2,000 characters. Then it rejected it because it only allows basic letters, numbers and punctuation. So I took out the html code linking to my blog, flickr account, Twitter account, etc. Then it rejected it again even though at that point it only contained basic letters and punctuation less than 2,000 characters. Anyways, here’s my profile. Apparently I haven’t earned any banjos yet.
2. The next thing I tried to do with Hunch is ask it a question. I tried the first relevant question for me that came to mind. “Which city should I visit next to photograph neon in?” Unfortunately it appears that you can not actually ask Hunch questions that are not already in their system. Since only freaks like me would care about shooting neon in U.S. ciites, I doubt I’ll ever see that question in Hunch.
3. So I tried a broader more general question, simply, which city should I visit next? Unfortunately that question was a little too much for Hunch as well. Instead it offered me up opportunities to learn about what cities I should visit in Europe and China, but not in the U.S. Oh and it also offered me up which museums I should visit in New York City. I’m not sure if Hunch was saying I should go to New York to shoot neon, or if I should just go to New York. It did offer back the advice though that I should “visit as much of Scotland as I can.” I wonder what’s in Scotland? The world’s biggest neon sign?
I tried a few more of the premade Hunch questions. I tried the “should I upgrade to the new iPhone,” question and it told me no. (I’m upgrading on Friday anyways, my son dropped my wife’s iPhone in a glass of water and it doesn’t work anymore, but it didn’t ask me that question). I also asked it if I was more of a Mac or a PC person and it told me PC (unfortunately, my new Mac arrives later this week).
I don’t really see Hunch being very useful for me. Maybe in 10 years or so when they have more pages or if they hire some kick ass photographer who knows where all the best neon is hidden away in America, but not for now. TechCrunch calls it “beguilingly fun” though, so maybe I’m just not doing it right. Official Hunch blog announcement here.