When you visit the site"its not really a search engine, as youll see"youll be asked to answer one simple question. Then another. Then another. In fact, Hunch cleverly draws you in my asking you a series of very simple questions"many of which you feel strangely compelled to answer. Heres an example:

And another:

After youve answered 20 or so questions, Hunch will prompt you to save your answers by creating a new account, after which, it will be able to help you make those not so important decisions in life. Like this one:

After I answered a number of questions about my music tastes, Hunch suggested the following artist:

Unfortunately, it didnt offer to play me a sample of music"which would have been nice, considering Hunch was recommending a band I had never heard of before.

So, whats to like about Hunch? Its kind of like flipping through the channels on your cable box. You come across that Anthony Bourdain show and realize that you too might like to eat sheeps gonads in Outer Mongolia. Hunch offers itself as an "answer" site, but I think its more akin to a "discovery engine." It helps you find neat stuff that you never knew you liked.

Whats not to like about Hunch? It gets painfully slow. Maybe this is just launch pains, but after I selected my "music" answers, I had time to go and pour another cup of coffee, before Hunch came back with its suggestions. Also, Im not convinced of Hunchs long-term appeal. Sure, if Im bored of Twitter, Hunch is a great place to go and waste time, but will it have enough to keep me coming back? Perhaps thats why Hunch allows you to embed topics on your web site"with millions of blogs showing Hunch topics, Hunch.com itself wont need to be the central hub of interaction.

Hunch has been under wraps for months and its founder is Caterina Fake"the same of Flickr fame"so, I suspect its worked hard on mixing the right ingredients to bring us back for me.

What do you think of Hunch?

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