Perhaps in a fit of jealousy over Flickr's organicly growing folksonomy and a bit of impatience on their own part, Google created the beta Google Image Labeler. Instead of waiting around for their community to create and build on socially interactive language, Google is actively soliciting users to compete for points. While not an organic process, being able to interact with someone in real time to create labels is a feature that other folksonomy-based sites (Flickr, del.icio.us, etc.) lack.
My only critique is on the points system - it seems that generating points only offers a listing in the Top 5 Scores. Perhaps because it is a beta version, that the points system is still being tweaked. It would be nice to see it be expanded to either offer rewards or leverage the competitive edge more in some fashion.
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