A little while back from online photography maven Thomas Hawk, I heard about TagCow and found out they use Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk to provide free tagging for uploaded photos, including Flickr streams. I was most curious about this, because some months ago, I asked "How much would you pay someone to tag your Flickr stream?"
Basically, the process was as simple as signing in with TagCow, granting them permission, then coming back a few weeks later. I found it pleasantly unintrusive, and as the mot de temps is, "transparent".
In the meantime, Dedric Mauriac has been a voluntary superstar and continued to tag my old images. While the MTurk workers don't have as accurate a grasp on my fave virtual world as bona fide Residents, most of the time, they don't do horribly either. Individual quality comes down to who's tagging, I suppose. As you can see in this example, some tags are generic and not useful like "image", while others are more specific about the subject matter — click to enlarge:
To be fair, describing Second Life snapshot as "graphics animation" or "video game scene" is as accurate as it gets for someone who's never experienced the world, and it's better than having nothing there at all. There's some odd typos, outright-wrong judgment (e.g., an odd number of pictures tagged "muffins"), and the quality diverges widely. I especially appreciated seeing when words within a picture were added as tags. Let's just say I hope I get the same people who do tag well over and over. 
To TagCow's credit, I sent my entire Flickr stream of 10,000+ photos through 'em after allowing access, and it looks like every single one got tagged (many of them had additional tags added on to ones that were there before). This took a little over a week, from March 30-April 9, 2008 — and activity has ceased for the time being. I don't know why. But I did ask "How can I find out when an old picture was tagged?" on the Flickr Help forum.
I searched for which Second Lifers had already named TagCow, and while matches are sparse, Veyron Supercharge interestingly cites it as an alternative to camping chairs — yes, by doing this, we could conceivably get a higher percentage of accurate Second Life descriptions!
Like Filter Forge, TagCow appears to be another clearly useful-with-Second-Life tool which has strangely been "under the radar" despite the obvious-ness of it all. So the word needs to get out, and that's precisely why I'm posting this.
Share your experiences in the comments!
![Torley posted a photo:[13:53] White Lebed: When I met Jayjay and joined the UWA sims as an artist-in-residence I didn't know much about this place. Once I realize what an amazingly special wonderful program this small team runs I was so impressed. And I wanted everybody know about what is going on here. Since it is better to see once than hear 100 times, I thought it would be the best way to tell the world about them is to invite machinima artists and ask them to film it. It was wonderful to be able to see this place through your eyes. And I love that the machinimas we got were not just advertisements, they were wonderful art pieces. What I never expected is that Jay will turn out to be the best fundraiser in thPosted by Second Life Resident Torley Linden. Visit University of WA.](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2693/4341983054_53aed5ab46_s.jpg "Torley posted a photo:[13:53] White Lebed: When I met Jayjay and joined the UWA sims as an artist-in-residence I didn't know much about this place. Once I realize what an amazingly special wonderful program this small team runs I was so impressed. And I wanted everybody know about what is going on here. Since it is better to see once than hear 100 times, I thought it would be the best way to tell the world about them is to invite machinima artists and ask them to film it. It was wonderful to be able to see this place through your eyes. And I love that the machinimas we got were not just advertisements, they were wonderful art pieces. What I never expected is that Jay will turn out to be the best fundraiser in thPosted by Second Life Resident Torley Linden. Visit University of WA.")
![Torley posted a photo:[13:47] Jayjay Zifanwe: CISKO VANDEVERRE, Berlin, GermanySEEKwww.youtube.com/watch?v=H6zbFx3DxwsPosted by Second Life Resident Torley Linden. Visit University of WA.](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2773/4341231363_c8b3458d23_s.jpg "Torley posted a photo:[13:47] Jayjay Zifanwe: CISKO VANDEVERRE, Berlin, GermanySEEKwww.youtube.com/watch?v=H6zbFx3DxwsPosted by Second Life Resident Torley Linden. Visit University of WA.")
![Torley posted a photo:[13:44] Jayjay Zifanwe shouts: BRADLEY DORCHESTER, Perth, AustraliaMachinimUWA: Art Architecture, Research, Teachingwww.youtube.com/watch?v=YN1k80dA3I8Posted by Second Life Resident Torley Linden. Visit University of WA.](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2737/4341230493_2f782e6088_s.jpg "Torley posted a photo:[13:44] Jayjay Zifanwe shouts: BRADLEY DORCHESTER, Perth, AustraliaMachinimUWA: Art Architecture, Research, Teachingwww.youtube.com/watch?v=YN1k80dA3I8Posted by Second Life Resident Torley Linden. Visit University of WA.")
![Torley posted a photo:[13:42] Jayjay Zifanwe: COLEMARIE SOLEIL, Florida USA UWA Machinima Challenge Submissionwww.youtube.com/watch?v=KdIQP-YrYLwPosted by Second Life Resident Torley Linden. Visit University of WA.](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2689/4341963584_bda095aac6_s.jpg "Torley posted a photo:[13:42] Jayjay Zifanwe: COLEMARIE SOLEIL, Florida USA UWA Machinima Challenge Submissionwww.youtube.com/watch?v=KdIQP-YrYLwPosted by Second Life Resident Torley Linden. Visit University of WA.")
![Torley posted a photo:[13:38] Jayjay Zifanwe: CHANTAL HARVEY, Maastricht, NetherlandsUniversity of Western Australia in Second Lifewww.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_pc90Eu4k[13:39] Jayjay Zifanwe: I want to say hi to all machinimatographers and their friends, fans and crews.Before I go into details, I want to express that I am very sorry that I cannot be here myself, at this ceremony - my real life got in the way. My boss wont give me the night off, not even for an important event like this. (cries). My ONE chance to meet the famous Torley and ask him to consider being a part of the MMIF machinima festival on the 20th of Februari - down the drain!Posted by Second Life Resident Torley Linden. Visit University of WA.](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2753/4341958070_318b895425_s.jpg "Torley posted a photo:[13:38] Jayjay Zifanwe: CHANTAL HARVEY, Maastricht, NetherlandsUniversity of Western Australia in Second Lifewww.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_pc90Eu4k[13:39] Jayjay Zifanwe: I want to say hi to all machinimatographers and their friends, fans and crews.Before I go into details, I want to express that I am very sorry that I cannot be here myself, at this ceremony - my real life got in the way. My boss wont give me the night off, not even for an important event like this. (cries). My ONE chance to meet the famous Torley and ask him to consider being a part of the MMIF machinima festival on the 20th of Februari - down the drain!Posted by Second Life Resident Torley Linden. Visit University of WA.")
![Torley posted a photo:[13:36] Jayjay Zifanwe: LASLOPANTOMIK YAO, Barcelona, Spain MachinimUWAblip.tv/file/3147141 (LASLOPANTOMIK YAO, Barcelona, Spain MachinimUWA blip.tv/file/3147141)Posted by Second Life Resident Torley Linden. Visit University of WA.](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4006/4341206009_e30658c02b_s.jpg "Torley posted a photo:[13:36] Jayjay Zifanwe: LASLOPANTOMIK YAO, Barcelona, Spain MachinimUWAblip.tv/file/3147141 (LASLOPANTOMIK YAO, Barcelona, Spain MachinimUWA blip.tv/file/3147141)Posted by Second Life Resident Torley Linden. Visit University of WA.")
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I have a question: HOW did you send your whole stream through? You pulled them off your hard drive and uploaded them, and then re-uploaded them to flickr?
I guess I was thinking I could get them to backtag my account, but I can't see that option in there.
It seems like I would have to go back through all my old Flickr images AFTER running the tagging program, to fix them, if they just retagged them all "video game image." Maybe it would be easier once they are caught up, to just check the most recent images weekly, or something.
Interested in hearing others' feedback. This could help standardize tags.
Princess Ivory
@thaumata: It was backtagged.
I went to http://www.tagcow.com/account/acctsettings and then setup "flickr account". That appears to have worked but I'm getting anxious for another update, since it's been over a week since the last tags.
@Princess: I certainly would hope you didn't get a bunch of bogus tags.
Thanks for the mention Torley. I'll have to look into this tagging service myself. As far as being a super star, I really just take a look at your pictures a few at a time and tag at will. I'm still very far behind in the SL3B photos still. I doubt I'll ever catch up to the current photos as you take way too many. My favorites are when I find pictures of me, friends I know, or simply things that interest me.
I believe I could probably setup something to integrate the flickr API with SL to alow folks to drop by and tag photos. It is just a matter of finding the time. With GTA around the corner, I doubt I'll be in SL much for a while.
Now what might be interesting for the camping chairs would be an interface to the Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Force campers to sit while doing dumb little things in world to collect real money for the camping chair creator. Hmmm, maybe I need to patent this.
-Veyron
Argh, I started trying out the tagCow service. It seems everyone is tagging with the signature that blog hud puts on every photo – "take by dedric mauriac at [sim name] [x, y, z]". This is one of the many times I wish that blog hud logo didn't appear in my pictures. Do you think SL will ever have API integration with a few of the popular blogs? It is a complex process to blog from within SL at the moment and dependent on too many 3rd party services.
@Dedric: No worries and no rush! Your tagging help continues to be appreciated and just do 'em as you feel. And if you have any specific photos you'd like me to tag, just let me know! Oooh GTA IV, exciting times. I read EGM's coverage of it and I like how they're going "back to basics" on some things and refining mechanics while overall striving to provide a better game experience.
Re: API integration, I don't think that's likely soon. It seems like the need/interest in will continue rising as time passes, tho, and perhaps some major shift will make it a lot more evidently important — not unlike how WindLight increased the value of taking snapshots & postcards.
@Veyron: HAHAHAH OMG, yes, someone must do that! What a gap in the marketplace RIGHT THERE! Camping chair operators, are you hearing this? I know that there's been camping chair variations that animate your avatar to look more lively, but actually contributing to our knowledge economy = teh win.