Google Gets Its Flickr On

Saddened to be left out of the whole social media photo tagging Flickr-fest, Shake Well Before Use tells us Google has launched Google Image Labeler. The new feature, in beta as all new Google products are, pairs people who use the service with another person, shows them images over a 90 second period, asks the pair to tag (label in Google parlance) the images and then awards points when the two use the same tag to describe the image. Since Google spiders images across the web without human interaction, the only thing it has to go on when responding to an image query is the filename and image title which don't always do the best job describing and categorizing an image. It's not clear whether the earned points get people anything other than a place on the point chart but if the program works, Google Image search will be greatly improved and, perhaps, enable better keyword ad placement.