for a few years now i’ve been interested in how everyday people describe images as opposed to how image experts describe them, and how the difference in vocabulary may affect the way search engines for images are constructed. i did my master’s paper on such a topic. i keep up with what’s going on in image indexing research, and it’s all very serious, focused, and academic. and then i stumbled upon google’s beta image labeler, which is also about image indexing for retrieval, and it’s all very fun, whimsical, and competitive. you’re paired with someone unknown and you type in words to describe an image on the screen. you get points when you and your partner use the same words. you’ve got 2 minutes to get through as many images as you can, but you only move on to the next image when your word matches your partner’s. this may be more addictive than weboggle. go now, give it a try.
