Microsoft releases game to help improve Bing search results

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Microsoft Research have released an online game to help fine-tune search results for Bing.

The game is named "Page Hunt" and the basic idea is to show the player a random web page, and get the player to come up with a query that would bring up this page in the top few results on a search engine. The idea is that human computation games that elicit data from players can be used to improve search.

Page Hunt was developed by Raman Chandrasekar and Chris Quirk of Microsoft Research in partnership with The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Georgia Institute of Technology. According to Microsoft "before we released the game to the web, we conducted a pilot study within our company. During this experiment, 341 people played Page Hunt over a period of ten days, generating over 14,400 labels on 744 web pages in the system. On average every player contributed 42 labels, and every page has about 19 labels."

Page Hunt was unveiled at this week's SIGIR 2009 conference in Boston. If you're interested in helping improve Bing search results then checkout Page Hunt which is hosted at Microsoft's Live Labs site. Microsoft Live Labs also includes Seadragon and Photosynth.

Thanks to Neowin member Jags_FL for the news tip

#1 +stevember on 28 Jul 2009 - 11:05

Oh boy that was fun...

They need make it something more but concept is good...

(2 replies) #2 nifke on 28 Jul 2009 - 11:10

For the people that will bash on Bing vs google: google has it also see http://images.google.com/imagelabeler

#2.1 MightyJordan on 28 Jul 2009 - 11:48

nifke said,

Yeah, I was going to mention that too. But Google's is for images only.

#2.2 duneworld on 28 Jul 2009 - 15:42

They might bash Bing for copying google?

#3 Tonicgoofy on 28 Jul 2009 - 11:10

yep I like it too, it can be fun. but they need to elaborate on the principle a little more.

#4 RonanFarrell on 28 Jul 2009 - 11:11

So, if I click 'Bad page', does that affect this page's future results in the actual Bing search?

#5 Relativity_17 on 28 Jul 2009 - 11:20

It doesn't always work - sometimes, the page that you search for appears in the top five results, but doesn't register as correct.

#6 mprcs on 28 Jul 2009 - 12:58

Does anybody know what queries I need for this Navigation Canceled page?
http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~b94902075/bingpagehunt.png

#7 Rudy on 28 Jul 2009 - 13:14

sounds ... uh .... boring?

#8 kInG aLeXo on 28 Jul 2009 - 13:52

What if hackers decided to corrupt the system ?.....

#9 kevcampbell on 28 Jul 2009 - 14:04

google image labeler is more fun

didnt know about any of them, but google image labeler is more fun than the bing game

(1 reply) #10 tuxplorer on 28 Jul 2009 - 14:20

All the Windows 7 fanboys line up to get "used by Bing". Yes we want Bing to improve Microsoft but isn't that your responsibility?

#10.1 lordcanti86 on 28 Jul 2009 - 18:28

Ummm....don't companies improve their products by listening to customer feedback (through a game in this case)?

#11 Turge on 28 Jul 2009 - 14:27

wow... this just showed me how bad Bing is at finding my queries. I was shown a University homepage and when I typed in the name, it wasn't even close to finding the page.

Also, it showed me the bottom frame of a web page and left out the top frame so I had no idea what the web site was for.

Worst. Game. Ever.

(1 reply) #12 +Ricardo Gil on 28 Jul 2009 - 15:00

Are they out of ideas so soon?

#12.1 bob_c_b on 28 Jul 2009 - 21:06

Ricardo Gil said,

They were out of ideas almost a decade ago.

(3 replies) #13 .Neo on 28 Jul 2009 - 15:03

How come when I type "Application X download" Google basically always seems to give me the developer's home page as a first result, but with Bing I get about everything except the developer's home page?

I honestly, don't get it. :/

#13.1 carpediem on 28 Jul 2009 - 15:42

.Neo said,

Can you give some examples of applications where it doesn't work?

#13.2 bob_c_b on 28 Jul 2009 - 21:06

It's a crap search engine, what is there not to get?

#13.3 GreyWolfSC on 28 Jul 2009 - 23:49

An example would be nice. I just tried a long list and got quite relevant results.

(1 reply) #14 duneworld on 28 Jul 2009 - 15:45

Gotta love the acronym GIT.
This game seems backwards to me, because surely the process of thinking of a search query to find something that you are looking for is a bit different to thinking of terms to describe a page you are already on.

#14.1 flash_flicker on 28 Jul 2009 - 16:22

agreed +1 and yes, very obviously so!! and thus defies the very intention of the whole thing....

#15 MistaT40 on 28 Jul 2009 - 16:42

Sounds cool

#16 HalcyonX12 on 28 Jul 2009 - 17:49

I think I'll go back to RE5...

#17 dlegend on 28 Jul 2009 - 20:00

I like the concept.

#18 Hahaiah on 28 Jul 2009 - 20:25

Brilliant.
Hey how about I let you paint my fence for just $5!
Some people will fall for anything ... lol

#19 paokun on 28 Jul 2009 - 21:21

I love the idea, but it feels like work, so I pass.
I'm sure there will be enough people with too much free time willing to do it ;-)

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