The other day I was looking for an image on Google and I stumbled across Google Image Labeler. This is one of the most creative collaborative/Web 2.0 widgets I have ever seen. Basically you get dynamically paired up with another user and Google shows you a series of pictures. You enter tags (like del.icio.us tags) blindly (you can't see your partners, they can't see yours). As soon as you get a match, you score 100 points and move to the next picture. At any point in time you can pass. When all is said and done you can see what tags your partner suggested (which is almost the most interesting part). Two simple take aways from this:
1) How smart is Google to make a little addictive game out of something they needed done. Very Tom-Sawyer-whitewashing-the-fence of them.
2) If you have ever wondered why centrally planned tagsonomies don't work and why folksonomies seem to have so much noise in them, just play a few games and look at the tags your partners choose. Unless we all move over to Doublespeak, we'll just have to deal with the fact that most languages are highly nuanced and nuance (and semantics) is the enemy of tagging.
Other than that, sorry I have not been blogging. We're working very hard launching the Enterprise Irregulars official web site. Coming soon to a browser near you.
