Google has introduced an interesting and highly addictive game as part of its image search component. Google Image Labeler works by pairing you with another random player and throwing images at you. Your collective goal is to type in text labels for the image until you and your partner come up with an identical label. Having done so, you get 100 points and move on the next one. You have 90 seconds... Go.

In case this seems familiar, it's basically the inverse of "Guess the Google".

Its fast pace keeps it addictive, and the running leader board encourages you to keep going. With a good partner, I've found it pretty easy to come within striking range of the current top 10.

There's some speculation at Webmasterworld that Google is using this to sharpen its image searching algorithm or to build a database of tagged images a la Flickr, but if that's the case, I don't know how useful these tags will be. It's very hard to tag portraits or simple pictures of an individual (for example), so you start throwing out every noun you can associate with it. You end up with something like "hair" or "shirt" or "person." This strategy can also be exploited directly, as indicated by the nickname of the points leader when I logged in yesterday: "just write t**s."

I hope someone who really understands game theory can unpack this, but the Google Image Labeler game seems to me an interesting case of a non-zero-sum game. Something like an iterated prisoner's dilemma where cooperation also benefits the police (Google). The only way to gain unfair advantage over the "police" in this scenario is through a pre-arranged contract (just write t**s). So for this project to be successful from Google's point of view, they have to have calculated the extent to which successful cooperation depends on specificity in labeling, but a pre-arranged contract breaks that calculation.

I'm really not sure if that helps explain why this game is so interesting (and addictive), but I would appreciate it if anyone can correct or amend my application of game theory here. I just think that since the structure of this Image Labeler game is so similar to the scenarios used in explaining game theory, there must be a way to talk about it in those terms.

I also think this game might qualify as a blend between serious and casual gaming, but this post is getting long.

Any thoughts?

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