12.07.09
What’s new for me: Hunch
I’ve always been intrigued by the potential intersection of community-based, user-generated web platforms and algorithmic, machine-based ones. Wikipedia and Wikia have proven to do a pretty darn good job with the former. Search engines clearly do a great job with the latter. But until recently I hadn’t seen a great example of how the two approaches could come together, co-exist and truly complement each other to form something greater than the sum of the parts – which I believe is the future of the web. (Allow me to call it now: this is what we are going to come to call Web 3.0.)
Hunch.com’s combination of community-sourced content and algorithmically-driven smarts is forging a promising path towards this potential future. And that’s why I’ve decided to join Hunch as a Board Member and an active advisor for the company’s ongoing development. As a result, I’ll be spending some time in Hunch’s NYC offices.
Hunch may be new to many of you; it was launched just 6 months ago. But the decision-making site, powered by a passionate community of active contributors, has already made significant progress and garnered respectable press. I’m impressed with the product, the Hunch community and the Hunch team, but mostly by the great potential I believe the company and its model have to intelligently fuse human input with machine smarts.
I’m looking forward to working closely with the Hunch team going forward (not to mention spending a lot more time in NYC!)
dystopicthinker said,
7 Dec, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Welcome to hunch! As a small member of the hunch user community I look forward to seeing what sort of contribution you might make to its future, whatever that may be.
readyeller said,
8 Dec, 2009 at 3:29 am
I just read an entry on CNN’s website titled “Citizens lay down law on U.S. debt” written by Jeanne Sahadi and, as I usually do, I began reading the comments posted by other readers. I find the posted comments to be very interesting because as you read through them you get a feel for what a slice of the readers are thinking.
The comments to this particular entry contained several with suggestions to how we could fix our current deficit problem. I began to wonder…what if you could harness this power of collective thought to try and come up with solutions to our country’s problems. You know, the old saying “two heads are better than one”. How would you do this using the internet?
Disclaimer: I am just an average user of computer and internet technology. I currently work as an aerospace engineer.
So I thought, what type of sites collect and assemble information using inputs from users? It was not hard to realize that Wikipedia does this very thing. So I wondered how hard would it be to use the social networking power of the internet to come up with solutions to our problems. God knows our politicians can use all the help they can get.
I guess you could set up topics and invite people to contribute ideas in a discussion format. There would be rules, of course, like no cruel criticism. Only constructive criticism would be allowed. I think it would be wonderful if everyday citizens were offered the opportunity to participate in solving our problems and I think the internet will play a key role in this area. Think of the power social networking sites could have in a collective thought process.
I figured you would be the person with an open mind to this suggestion. And it looks like “Hunch” runs along the lines of what I just mentioned. After reading the article mentioned in my first paragraph I did a little research. To be honest, I didn’t know who Wikipedia’s founder was until 20 minutes ago.
Take Care.
Conrad Bate said,
8 Dec, 2009 at 6:04 am
Jimmy
Sorry to cut into your thread, but I’ve specc’d an idea for a translexicon (free translation device) based on the wiki methodology.. It’s not a 1+1=2 word translator either i’ll go through it with you when you email me.
Within 3 years the project would: 1 allow any site to be meaningfully translated to any language (triangulated via english) 2 become part of a library that would license spoken words into a hardware device to be spoken out in translated form by that machine. the second part would be commercial and would pay for the whole of the wiki website plus a lot more.
email me conradbate@hotmail.com