Image Tagging

For all those who are not familier with the term Image tagging, it is a mechanism of associating tags with the pictures, which help when we google images. Let us take an example.

It's a simple picture of a car. We can attach tags like "blue, blue car, future car" and like that to this image. Search engines also take into consideration these tags while searching. So higher the relevant tags, better is the result.

On August 31, 2006 Google launched the "Google Image Labeler". It's a type of game that requires the users to label the images shown to them.

Luis von Ahn of Carnegie Mellon University developed this kind of ESP Game (game that uses the computational power of humans to perform a task that computers cannot yet do).
The rules for the game is very simple.

* Google pairs you with a randomly selected online partner. Then you and your partner both shown with a same set of images.

* You come up with as many labels you can and your partner will do the same. When both of you come up with the same label you will be awarded points according to the specificness of the image.
Eg if there is a photo of blue car, the label "blue car" will fetch you more points than the label "car" or "blue".

* You will be given 2 min. of time and can also pass the image if nothing comes to your mind.

At the end you will be awarded with your points and can also see your partner's suggested tags for each image. Your score will keep on adding if you play with same id. Google also displays the top pairs for the day. There is no reward for them but a satisfaction of doing something better for image searching.

I spend around 10 min daily on this lovely concept. It's a good timepass and sometimes improve your thinking ability.