Considering that Google is giving way too much power to their visitors to tag content for videos (like the Matt Cutts Video incident), they are now giving them a little bit of power in labeling the Google pictures, except this time they made it a game!

The Google Image Labeler is a game where you are paired up with an opponent and both of you are given the same image. You then have to label the image as correctly as possible and the quicker you submit labels for the image, the more points you have to advance against another opponent!

They probably take the most commonly submitted labels and tag their images for that! This probably means that if you type in a non-related label and submit it, the chances are pretty low that tons of other people will submit the exact same label. A smart move. Now many people may argue that Google is simply making people work to their advantage in making their SERP’s better. Obviously they are, but they are doing something which is unique because no Search Engine could possibly know what an image is correctly, therefore they have to rely on what the tag or anchor text to the image is.

Using this “game” they are using the public’s knowledge to label the images instead of having to pay a couple billion people to sit in front of computer and label tons of images, they are getting the public to label the images for free and made it a game.

In a way, the public is helping build a better Search Engine - Google.