Can Hunch’s Algorithm Improve Your Gift-Giving Skills?: Tech News « With the holidays approaching, we’re entering that time of year when desperate people grab things like ties, inappropriate books and goofy toys in a pathetic attempt to bring joy to their friends and loved ones. Can algorithms help? New York-based startup Hunch thinks they can, and Gifts.com, the shopping site that is part of the IAC empire apparently agrees.
Gifts.com has been using Hunch’s recommendation engine for almost two weeks now, and the company says its conversion rate (i.e., the number of people who go from being shoppers to buyers) is as much as 60 percent higher than it was before the site started using the tool to make recommendations. When you go to the Gifts.com section that’s using Hunch, you’re prompted to log in with your Facebook account, since Hunch uses your Facebook “social graph” or friend connections, to power the feature. “I think it probably needs another two weeks or so before it becomes mature,” Dixon said. Related GigaOM Pro content (sub req’d):
Blog Archive | Hunch launches Partner Platform for personalization; 7 inaugural partners represent 250 million+ monthly unique visitors. Hunch Relaunches as Internet Personalization Service. Hunch was never a social Q&A service, though many press outlets have confused it for one. The service, founded by Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake and super-hot angel investor Chris Dixon, has relaunched its home page and is now more clearly positioned than ever as a taste-graph driven recommendation engine. That might sound confusing, but the new home page is actually drop-dead simple. Log in with your Twitter or Facebook account, answer as few as 20 quick and addictive taste-evaluation questions, and Hunch will turn the front page of the site into a list of highly targeted personal recommendations of movies, books, magazines, computers, meals, vacation destinations and more.
It's really impressive. Above: My new Hunch home page, click for full-size view. Hunch is well-known for its "Tell Hunch About Yourself" feature, where thousands of users have answered hundreds of questions each about themselves. All kinds of correlations can be drawn from comparing these responses. Hunch Takes $12 Million From Khosla Ventures, Adds Former Facebo.
What You Want: Flickr Creator Spins Addictive New Web Service | Magazine.