One of my favorite websites, Hunch, just launched a Twitter predictor. You enter your username and based on your Twitter circle (your followers and those who follow you) and data gathered through Teach Hunch About You questions, the site will ask you Teach Hunch About You questions and predict your answers. To show that they’re not just changing their guess to your answer, you can take a peek at what Hunch thinks you’ll say.
Yes, some of the questions are pretty obvious, but others are less so. Today probably isn’t your birthday. You’re probably right-handed. You’ve probably never been arrested. So far Hunch has done well; I’ve answered 300 questions, and the Twitter predictor has gotten 273 (91%) of them right. I can’t even use the excuse of procrastinating on writing since I’ve written my daily 3000 words.
Here are some notable and non-obvious things Hunch has gotten right about me so far:
1. I don’t have a car.
2. I don’t have a job. (Hint, hint.)
3. I’m a (wannabe) academic.
4. I rarely iron.
5. I can’t whistle well. (Actually, I can’t whistle at all.)
To counter that, here are some things Hunch got wrong. There weren’t that many, but here are a few.
1. I have toured a winery.
2. I have ridden in a helicopter. (Hunch thought no, but I’d like to.)
3. I make my bed every day. (Hunch said no.)
4. I have said ‘I love you’ in the past 24 hours. (To a family member, for the curious.)
5. I haven’t read or seen any Shakespeare in the past three years.
So maybe I’m not that predictable after all. Overall, though, the Twitter predictor is accurate based on the data it has already gathered, so check it out.