Google Image Labeler
The Google Image Labeler
is a game where you and a web partner try to agree on a label on an
image. The more images you and your partner identicaly label the
more points you get. Of course, at the same time, google is
collecting all sorts of human-applied labels that it can then use to
improve its image search function. It's a great way to get humans
to help classify images without having to pay them
It seems that a similar technique could be used to help apply labels to music. The labels could then be used to help cross the semantic gap, and allow people to search for music based upon content-based keywords. Teaching computers how to extract meaningful acoustic labels from audio is a hard job. Getting humans to provide the labels by getting them involved in an engaging game, where the labels are generated as a sideproduct would be a great way to collect this data. The resulting labels would be extremely useful for researchers and music search engine creators. Of course, audio and images are very different media. A game that works well with images won't work well with audio. So the trick is to figure out how capture the labelling process in an engaging activity. Sounds like a good masters thesis for some music technologist.
It seems that a similar technique could be used to help apply labels to music. The labels could then be used to help cross the semantic gap, and allow people to search for music based upon content-based keywords. Teaching computers how to extract meaningful acoustic labels from audio is a hard job. Getting humans to provide the labels by getting them involved in an engaging game, where the labels are generated as a sideproduct would be a great way to collect this data. The resulting labels would be extremely useful for researchers and music search engine creators. Of course, audio and images are very different media. A game that works well with images won't work well with audio. So the trick is to figure out how capture the labelling process in an engaging activity. Sounds like a good masters thesis for some music technologist.
Posted by Jeremy P on September 05, 2006 at 01:52 PM EDT #