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Less than a week ago we were all told not to consider Bing (Microsoft's new search engine) a search engine but rather a "decision engine." As of today, Bing as a decision engine is already, like, totes fifteen minutes ago. Hunch launches today.

Hunch mixes collaborative filtering with machine learning to build an algorithm for answering the kinds of questions co-founder Caterina Fake once helped faciliate at Yahoo Answers. As great as Yahoo Answers can be, it has a significant limitation -- a human being has to answer your question (or perhaps pretend to answer your question while really advertising some service). Hunch will attempt to answer your question algorithmically by asking you ten questions or fewer and comparing your answers to its "taste database."

According to WSJ's Andrew LaVallee:

Caterina Fake, who co-founded the photo-sharing site Flickr and helped launch Yahoo Answers, joined Hunch’s other co-founders Chris Dixon and Tom Pinckneylast year. They met her through LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and the three of them began working through ideas about decision trees and online communities. The 10-person firm has received $2 million from Bessemer Venture Partners and General Catalyst Partners. (Read Flickr Co-Founder's New Hunch)

Hunch's homepage greets you with an opportunity to spill your guts on 20 topics to help the application learn your preferences. For the record, I find George Clooney more attractive than Nicole Kidman. Next, I was offered six decisions to make. I happen to be deciding this week where to go with my husband for our annual August vacation, so I decided to take a crack at this timely topic and see how close Hunch could get to the three European scenarios we've narrowed down to:

Our Vacation Ideas

1. Prague and Budapest (or possibly Prague and other Czech towns). We've only been to those cities once, over ten years ago, in November. We don't feel we did them justice, and we've never seen them in warm weather. We generally like to try somewhere new, but it's been long enough now, and prices are good.  
2. Barcelona, Granada and maybe Madrid. We've never been to Spain and John has been wanting to go since teaching a course on Spanish classical composers last year.

3. Classical Music / Opera trip to Switzerland or Italy. We try to see operas, concerts and plays when we travel. In late August, the options center around central/northern Italy and Switzerland. Basically we're talking resort areas where they have alps and/or lakes. We're ignoring the festivals in Salzburg, Edinburgh and Bayreuth because we've already been there or (in the case of Bayreuth) we doubt we could obtain or afford tickets on short notice.

Hunch's Questions

1. General environment: (urban, ocean, mountainous, etc.) Skipped, because every choice offered was part of at least one scenario on our short list.
2. Area: Europe, definitely.
3. Climate: again, punted. Europe in August will either be hot (OK with us ) or warm but not blistering (ideal).
4. Atmosphere: Old-world charm.
5. What kind of trip: romantic. It's just my husband and me. Actually the choice said "honeymoon" which isn't quite accurate since we're approaching our 15th anniversary.
6. Is it important to go somewhere with an active social environment? Nope -- I did a little self-editing here on the assumption that this meant nightlife and that's not usually our thing.
7. Do we need organized activities? I decided to answer yes even though we're independent travelers because I'm interested in whether Hunch will understand about music festivals.
8. Time of year: July-September
9. Would we like the opportunity to make day trips? Yes.
10. How many people do we want to see on a daily basis? Skipped.

And the answer is... Verona, Italy!

 Remember our Scenario No. 3? Would it surprise you to learn that Verona (essentially in north central Italy) is hindeed under consideration? It's home to one of the country's biggest opera festivals, held outdoors in an ancient amphitheater.

I was impressed, but is this really impressive, or does Hunch have only a few destinations that meet my criteria? There are few classical music festivals, period, in late August. But then again, I did not specify classical music in the ten questions and there is a big rock music festival going on at the same time in Budapest, a city we're strongly interested in. Did Hunch steer me to Verona's arena festival because I somehow communicated that preference in my original 20 "get to know you" questions?

Ways to keep up with Hunch:

• Follow "hunch" on Twitter profile
• Read Hunch's blog.
• Friend (of Fan, I guess) Hunch on Facebook