In the shorter term, there might be some special sauce in this site that can imbue a potentially boring task (creating and reading decision trees) with enough emotional meaning to make it work.
For the decider, there is the appeal of having a system to approach a difficult decision; of learning from others; of mastering a challenge and having confidence in your decision.
For people responding to a question and refining the decision tree, there is the appeal of demonstrating expertise and understanding how other people think.
And there is a more abstract appeal for deciders, responders, and just plain readers: validation that you're facing a challenge that you shouldn't be ashamed of, that you can ask for help with, and that can be overcome.
I'm not sure if hunch really does appeal effectively in these ways (I've only just requested an invite) but the potential is there. Starting with that sort of potential and really listening to users seems to be how flickr evolved into a product+community that is really prized by its members/customers, and another app made with that same level of attention and attentiveness could really earn a lot of devotion.
The large-scale analysis and AI could certainly be amazing -- but if you want to learn from this as a model for your own future work, pay attention to how well this app connects to the emotions of its users, and how they grow the community around it. If you're making something that doesn't have a straightforward save-time/money selling proposition, making those things work is your biggest challenge.
For the decider, there is the appeal of having a system to approach a difficult decision; of learning from others; of mastering a challenge and having confidence in your decision.
For people responding to a question and refining the decision tree, there is the appeal of demonstrating expertise and understanding how other people think.
And there is a more abstract appeal for deciders, responders, and just plain readers: validation that you're facing a challenge that you shouldn't be ashamed of, that you can ask for help with, and that can be overcome.
I'm not sure if hunch really does appeal effectively in these ways (I've only just requested an invite) but the potential is there. Starting with that sort of potential and really listening to users seems to be how flickr evolved into a product+community that is really prized by its members/customers, and another app made with that same level of attention and attentiveness could really earn a lot of devotion.
The large-scale analysis and AI could certainly be amazing -- but if you want to learn from this as a model for your own future work, pay attention to how well this app connects to the emotions of its users, and how they grow the community around it. If you're making something that doesn't have a straightforward save-time/money selling proposition, making those things work is your biggest challenge.