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Google Image Game [Google Image Labeler]

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

Friday, September 1, 2006
17 years ago25,637 views

http://images.google.com/imagelabeler

have fun

Corsin Camichel [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

some images are way to small to see whats on them. But nice idea to make a game out of it. What do you think, is this the "Google Image Tagger" Garett wrote?

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

yup

jilm [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Great!

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Neat idea. I like how they make it out that you're playing a game when really you're helping them to improve their image search results!

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I seem to keep getting the same images but with different "off-limit" words. I wonder how they select which images to display.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Randomly (from a limited set)?

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Sometimes, the "off-limit" words contain typos – i.e. "stnoe" instead of "stone". Since it's unlikely two people would type "stnoe", I think they actually store/use all labels entered, but perhaps weight the ones partners agree upon more heavily.

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Ionut, how do you discovered that game ?

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Somebody sent a mail.

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

It doesn't work anymore : "We apologize for the inconvenience, but there was an error contacting the server.
Please try again momentarily."

I look the source and it might be created with google web toolkit, no?

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

It's working for me. And yes, it appears it was made with GWT. Clever stuff!

Splasho [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I imagine Google will use this data for Picasa too

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

BTW, Corsin said:

<< What do you think, is this the "Google Image Tagger" ... ? >>

I think we already know that it is – "google.image.tagger" is all over their source code. I think the developers just forgot that Google's word for "tags" is "labels" – meaning they had to call it "Google Image Labeler" instead... ;-)

GoogleImageLabeler.com was only registered by Google yesterday too, so perhaps this was a real last-minute decision!

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Philipp – I see from your screenshot that your first attempt was "machine wood":

http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-image-labeler.png

Did you do what I did and just enter multiple labels before clicking the "Label" button?

I don't think it's clear that you have to enter each label separately and submit each one.

Pierre S [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Btw, i'm beating someone called Marissa. Is this the Marissa spending her time playing at this game ?

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I think it could be. She was there three hours ago an she has a decent score.

Nico [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

According to me, you're not playing a game with a partner, they fooling us, the partner is a bot or something like that, they just want to validate some keyword associate with picture...

Pip [PersonRank 8]

17 years ago #

I mage 8 labels with a good opposite. what's your highscore?

Ludwik Trammer [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

> I think the developers just forgot that Google's word for "tags" is "labels"
> so perhaps this was a real last-minute decision!

http://images.google.com/imagetagger receive another 404 error than Google's generic 404, so probably there was something before.

Reto Meier [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Sweet jesus that game is addictive. There's my productive afternoon in the toilet.

Best score is 800 – now I'm in the top 50 'all time' I'm going to take a break ;)

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

It's a great game, but the pictures are too small for Google to get good keywords from it.

Pip [PersonRank 8]

17 years ago #

have you ever thought you could be helping google finding delusive alt-tags with that game? :-D nice range of purposes...

Jake's View [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I've got a score of 5400! (and carpal tunnel syndrome)

NateDawg [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

ok, wow this is addicting!

Reto Meier [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Passed Tony on my way to the top 15... Must. Stop. Playing!

After a while you recognise other 'good' players who know how to game the system for certain image types. In particular pictures with a 'man' or 'people'. Still, the blocked words should be able to control that over time.

What gets me is the unexpected match, you see a picture with 3 women construction workers on an orange bridge and the match I got was on 'orange'. Unexpected.

Pip [PersonRank 8]

17 years ago #

map is my favorite. 11 matches and top 15 too..... :-/ STRONGLY ADDICTIVE.... do not dare to start!

Phil Bradley [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

This is basically a very late comer.. the ESP Game: Labeling the Web at http://www.espgame.org/ has been around for a very long time. Slightly different in that it's not using a Google collection, but their own 30,000 or so images, but the concept is the same.

Still, whichever you use, it's still a fun game!

AN [PersonRank 3]

17 years ago #

So each image takes 1m 30s to be processed, and each label must be entered individually? Weird. Besides, my partners always want to pass when I find the description obvious, and vice versa. I don't see the need for partners. Just let me label some things on my own and check it with others later on.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Whewwwwwwwww.. this is very addictive .. Sharing current ranking .. could other share too ?? :)

http://slash.pd.googlepages.com/imgtag.png

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

WTF is this:

http://www.google.com/images?q=tbn:oq0f8Z2jte8J:atlaseye.web.cern.ch/atlaseye/Pictures/UX15_Jura/ux15_jura_040703_103001.jpg

I keep typing room, machine, machinery and I never get a match!

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Actually google should have had an option to "invite". At time, I just want to play with someone I know rather then some person named "chris" ..

So this would be a nice way to intergrate as a "game" along their full suite of services.. Like why should I invite some for Calendat and writely and not for this game.. ??

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

<< Sharing current ranking .. could other share too ?? :) >>

http://ruscoe.net/blog/uploads/google-image-labeler-ranking-200609011410.gif

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

<< I just want to play with someone I know rather then some person named "chris" .. >>

But then you could discuss how to label the images (using GTalk or another IM application) and end up "googleimagebombing" images...

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Tony Ruscoe: your pic looks like the inside of a nuclear reactor or somesuch.

I'm up to 4600 points (all-time tanking 139) but it's a fast-moving target. Take a break and you drop right back in the rankings!

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

<< Take a break and you drop right back in the rankings! >>

I'd not played for an hour and my position stayed the same. I guess I got a good innings the first time round... ;-)

AN [PersonRank 3]

17 years ago #

Roger Browne: we just had seven matches! But it seems to me, only the unspecific labels work. Men, women, trees. But those aren't great descriptors for "real life" searches.

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Colors are good for matches too. Typing speed helps heaps

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Also, if you've seen the same picture a few times, you get an idea of what people are putting based on previous matches an off-limit words. ;-)

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Of course we could game the system by always typing "gb" as our first label for every image. As soon as we find a match we can just use gb for the rest of the images in that series!

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Heh, I got a match on "snow", then I realised it was a photo of the lunar surface!

Reto Meier [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Tony: The picture is of the AtlasEye (follow the image link after you've finished the game!). I think it's some sort of space camera. In any case 'construction' seems to work best for that set... ;)

Best ranking was 15 – dropped back to 20 now. But I'm number five in best single game (1200pts).

AN [PersonRank 3]

17 years ago #

Why are some terms off-limit?

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Roger, I've had that picture and "snow" was the off-limit word.

I thought to myself, "Who the hell thought that picture was snow!?!" :-D

(I typed "moon", "moondust", "lunar" and "space" and didn't get a match!

AN [PersonRank 3]

17 years ago #

Yay! Me (guest) and Dint scored 1300 points, currently #5!

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

<< You and TOMHTML have matched on 6 labels.
Your cumulative score is 20000. >>

LOL! We should've done the "gb" trick... ;-)

-TD- [PersonRank 4]

17 years ago #

You and TOMHTML have matched on 7 labels.
Your cumulative score is 1200.

----

You just wonder if it is just us playing the game :S

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

<< You and mphill17 have matched on 15 labels.
Your cumulative score is 21200. >>

w00t – I'm on the "Top Pairs" board!

http://ruscoe.net/blog/uploads/google-image-labeler-top-pairs-200609011501.gif

. o O (I think I'd best stop now ...)

Susan Geraeds [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Definitely addictive, didn't do any work for about 2 hours. Tony Ruscoe, try "factory" :)

-TD- [PersonRank 4]

17 years ago #

Well done me and TOMHTML

You and TOMHTML have matched on 7 labels.
Your cumulative score is 1200.

---

Patting myself on back for a decent score :)

Ludwik Trammer [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Google has showed me image from anty-Google campaign ;)

http://www.ludwik.trammer.pl/screens/love_google.png

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

<< You and TD have matched on 15 labels.
Your cumulative score is 25800. >>

That's put me on the Top Pairs board twice now! ;-) Cheers -TD-!

-TD- [PersonRank 4]

17 years ago #

;) No problems. Haha. This is a game I need to make school go quicker.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I hate this:

http://www.google.com/images?q=tbn:uJmarVqMIpwJ:atlaseye.web.cern.ch/atlaseye/Pictures/UX15_Geneva/ux15_geneva_040218_130002.jpg

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Ionut: Me too (see above) but it's true what most people are saying...

"factory"

:-)

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Ionut, let's all agree what it is, and googlebomb it.

Keef [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Has anyone else seen the Google Tech Talk about Human Computation that describes this exact game???

Check it out at http://video.google.com/­videoplay?docid=-8246463980976635143 it is fascinating, and obviously where Google got the idea from.

I wonder if Google will take up any more of this guys suggestions.

Keef

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

industry
whatever

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

You know, Google's system (:)) can be easily gamed: everyone types "whatever" for each and every label.

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Hello Tony :o)

BTW, it's really boring on pass and wait 1 minute+ for the other... who left the game

-TD- [PersonRank 4]

17 years ago #

Guests are wrecking this game. Make them sign up Mr Google Man.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

This is funny:

http://www.box.net/lite/d07fdgvtpr

Angus Prune [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

I find it interesting that no one has mentioned the long running ESP game -

http://www.espgame.org/

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Hey Ionut, that is not an image.. ..thats a graph --that should not qualify in the game!!

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Do you know a way to know the rank of all people ?
I'm currently 16th :)

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Angus Prune said:

<< I find it interesting that no one has mentioned the long running ESP game ... >>
  
Some has: http://blogoscoped.com/forum/65749.html#id65791

;-)

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

tony you're 15th, I'm 13th :)
but I'm completely tired now, I can't close my eyes, now I'm a geek ^^

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

"tony you're 15th, I'm 13th" --"now I'm a geek " ----

understatement of the year – "extreme geek"-- is what was expected :)-

Keef [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

The ESP Game is definately the inspiration for this feature. The guy who set-up the ESP Game talks about using humans as comutational tools in this Google Tech Talk video:
http://video.google.com/­videoplay?docid=-8246463980976635143

Gregor J. Rothfuss [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

In the mentioned video, there was an estimate that all of Google image search could be tagged in 3-4 months, with an estimated 5000 concurrent players. Which is about the level of concurrency at game sites like Yahoo games.

It was also mentioned that 9B man-hours are wasted on solitaire each year. The panama canal, by comparison, took 200M man-hours. Tapping into these huge reservoirs of slacker energy will have major impacts. I wrote about this twice:

http://greg.abstrakt.ch/archives/2005/04/the_rise_of_inf.html
http://greg.abstrakt.ch/archives/2005/12/second_life_is_an_euphemism_for_a_busy_retirement.html

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

16. TOMHTML 37200
17. Tony Ruscoe 36000
18. Roger Browne 35000

Must... play... more... I'm losing my position!

Matt Cutts [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Mad props to Tony Ruscoe! I saw the leader board with his name and it blew me away. :)

I never matched more than 8 images in one round today. :(

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Heh! Cheers Matt. (Although, it's obviously down to the luck of the draw of whether you get a good partner or not...)

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Tony:
> Did you do what I did and just enter multiple labels before
> clicking the "Label" button?

Yup, exactly. I figured labels could be separated by blanks. This was my very first try...

> Also, if you've seen the same picture a few times

This is weird... I was figuring their image database was so gigantic you wouldn't see the same image over and over.

-TD- [PersonRank 4]

17 years ago #

Exactly, I have had rubbish partners in the last 10 or so rounds :(

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Search Engine Watch has a statement from Luis van Ahn:

"Yes, Image Labeler is based on my ESP Game, which Google licensed. I'm not employed by Google, however, since I'm a full-time faculty member at Carnegie Mellon."
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060901-094309

CarLBanks [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

This game is just way too fun! Google actually came up with a cool game and did you realize it's kind of like charades?

-TD- [PersonRank 4]

17 years ago #

Argh, my S button is going all mashed now :(Im gonna have to sue Google now.

Stephen Christopher [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

You really need to mention the ESPGame in the article. It's been around awhile, and is really fun! Plus it's obviously the precursor to this idea.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

hey guys... are we sure that the system is actully finding a partner ??

in one instance, I saw it going thru the "finding partner" and then the image appeared with 3 "off limit" words already there.. this happend to me more then once.. am I playing a system at times ?? that is somebody else tags are being seeded and become "offlimts"!!

-TD- [PersonRank 4]

17 years ago #

Meh, the game has lost its appeal when your partner doesnt take part.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Like...

Rishi r [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

The size of the pictures need to be larger. In the current scenario, there are many pics that are impossible to identifty bcause they are so small.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

like.. the other buggers just waits for the 1.30Min to die.. and does even type a keystroke.. this makes it a killer.. as the interaction goes thru 5 cycles and then your saying to yourself WTF did google do this time.. can't they hook me up with a better person ??

This comes to the fact that the "intention" and "attention" still needs to be harversted meaningfully.. I am pretty sure, someone mentioned above "dumb charades".. in fact that was exactly what happen with one particpant.. s/he type one word this come to the "offlimit" then I typed and then it like within 3 words we wanted a pass.. both of us carried on like this.. this was great.. both econonmies were getting fullfied..

however I had a dumb person who did nothing.. twice.. and thas a kill joy!! :(-

  

Andrew Hitchcock [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

For that one image, I usually say industrial.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

/pd said:

<< am I playing a system at times ?? >>

Have you watched the Tech Talk video? Luis says that the ESP Game sometimes pitches players against previous player's moves, so it's possible you're not always playing against a real partner!

He also has some clever ways to stop cheating (or googlebombing).

It really does sound like Luis thought of everything!

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

no – I have not watched the video.. just that my gut insticts kicked in.. and I had to pop the questions :)-

thanks for the clarifications..hehehe..my alpha waves still seem to be working!!

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

/pd – Watch the video... Seriously! I thought, "50 mins long – no way am I watching all that!" And now I'm into the last 10 mins (Q&A session)... :-)

Ludwik Trammer [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Yeah, the video is really great. I'm impressed. There are a lot of details, and other games like this are described. Philipp, why don't you make a post with the most important points of this video? I think it's extremely interesting.

Mambo [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I just keep Notepad open, copy link location, paste it into Notepad, and that usually tells you the answer.

WAL-A!

Stephen [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Does anyone think this could be some R&D for that photo recognition company they just bought? Say after this trial is over they pick the top 20 photo's labeled portrait. Then tell the program to analyze the shape of them and say if anyone searches for portrait this is the shape you are looking for.

Mambo [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

It's probably something like that, yeah.

ijosha [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Y'all might want to try this other Google image guessing game
http://grant.robinson.name/projects/guess-the-google/
I like it a lot.

Andrew Hitchcock [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I'm in the top 100 now :). It is a fun thing to do while listening to music and to help with typing accuracy.

However, the interface is kinda a slow in Safari and sometimes it'll miss me hitting enter (and instead it moves the cursor to the beginning of the text field). I wish they made the interface faster, because that is what is slowing me down for some of them :).

Also, the last game I played I saw someone I recognized. I was going through and saw a couple with the man holding a newborn baby. I almost immediately recognized him as Bharat Mediratta. He is the guy that founded Gallery (a PHP image gallery) and is now working at Google, IIRC.

Andrew Hitchcock [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

BTW, the performance with Firefox was much better than with Safari. That could have been because I was playing at an odd hour, though.

NateDawg [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Garetts got some interesting takes on the direction of the image label game. I'm really excited to see of the peekabom game comes out (from Google) :D

Link:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=313
http://www.peekaboom.org/

NateDawg [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Ok, I just finished watching the entire video by Dr. Luis von Ahn, and happend to notice two breaks in the movie. One @ ~43:30 and another @ ~44:10. These two cuts where during the Q&A, got me wondering what Google cut out. Briliant speach and facinating approach to using human computation. (you tell I watched it by that phrase :)

LeBain [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Here's how to win: Everybody label everything asdf

NateDawg [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

[put at-character here]Lebain, If you watch the video Dr. Ahn explains how the game prevents this kind of abuse.

Basicly (in very lamen terms), during each game, you get a control image, an image where the commen labels are known. If both people answer some off the wall thing, it won't store the answer. The other way it prevents abuse is that some times your actually playing a single player game, where the moves and answers are prerecorded, having the user verify labels. The presentation is just under 40 min with about 11 mins of Q&A afterwards. If you have the time, this is a great video to watch (ps. Dr. Ahn is pretty funny, in a engineering sort of way :)

Homunkel [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

They should not allow guest and they bring those "players" together who work well with each other ...

zmarties [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Confirmed, Bharat Mediratta is working at Google...

see http://www.mediratta.net/

where a recent post mentions that he's working in the Google Manhattan office

moquist [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Google needs a "lame partner" button so you can ditch people who stink.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

(Just an update for those that might be interested...)

"Google Image Labeler" was previously known as "Google Guess" which I discovered in their sandbox.

Create Account:
https://sandbox.google.com/accounts/CreateAccount?service=guess

New Account:
https://sandbox.google.com/accounts/NewAccount?service=guess

Login:
https://www.google.com/accounts/Login?service=guess

ServiceLogin:
https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=guess

DPic [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

[Moved from "google image labler" – Tony]

I'm not sure if this has been covered or is even worth mentioning, but i'm sure you all know about google image labler – http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/ but have you seen this video from google? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8246463980976635143&q=type%3Agoogle so, i guess this is where the idea came from, but why aren't these looked at or referenced to often when investigating google? here's more videos from google – ttp://video.google.com/videosearch?q=type%3Agoogle

Mambo [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

[Moved from "google image labler" – Tony]

What have captchas got to do with image labeler?

Mambo [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

[Moved from "google image labler" – Tony]

Okay, sorry, I haven't watched it enough yet.

DPic [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

[Moved from "google image labler" – Tony]

yeah they go on to mention using it for things like image labeling

DPic [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

[Moved from "google image labler" – Tony]

has anyone else found anything valuable from google's tachtalks?

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