Local Guides who love answering questions in Google Maps or who are passionate about translation and accessibility may enjoy the new Crowdsource app from Google. Currently available for Android.
Every day we hear from people around the world who wish Google products worked better in their languages and communities. Often we simply don’t know enough about the language or locale to make quick progress. But now you can speed this up: answer simple questions in the Crowdsource app, and you’ll help Maps, Translate, and Android work better for your local community. It’s easy to use whenever you have a few minutes to kill — waiting in line or commuting on the bus or train, even when you’re offline.
Here’s an overview of the various categories of questions that you can help with:
Image Transcription: You can improve the speed at which new imagery and streets are added to Maps by deciphering text in images for products like Google Street View (available in English only).
Handwriting Recognition: Want Google Keyboard to work better in your language? Transcribe short handwriting samples (available in 40+ languages).
Maps POI Localization: You can help make Google Maps accessible for everyone by localizing names of businesses and places of interest in 35+ languages.
Translation: Google Translate enables people and businesses around the world to communicate with each other (we use it here on Connect). By offering short translations or verifying translations from others, you can help make the web accessible in 100+ languages.
Sentiment Analysis: Reviews help people make decisions about where to go and what to buy. You can help us understand the emotion expressed in reviews, so we can make our recommendations even more useful (available in 20+ languages).
Machine Learning
Why do we need your help with these questions, you might ask? Each of your contributions is fed into algorithms that basically teach machines how to think. We use this technique, called Machine Learning, to offer great experiences in several of our products. Reading street names from Google Street View images, understanding handwriting gestures on the keyboard or translating from one language to another are all done by software that “learns” these abilities by studying millions of samples of data of that type. The more good samples we have, the better we can make these features work. These questions are designed to collect such samples.
Badges
Because the questions in this app come from teams all across Google, we’re not offering Local Guides points for these tasks (yet). You can score cool badges in the Crowdsource app itself as you try out different tasks or cross different milestones. Tried out the app when offline? There’s badge for that. Answered a few Handwriting questions? There’s another badge for that — one that levels up as you answer more questions. You can share your badges on social media and in conversations using your favorite chat platform.
Helpful Tips
Don’t know the answer to a question? Feel free to Skip it. We look at answers from multiple people before deciding on the right answer, so don’t feel pressured to respond to questions that you don’t know the answer to.
While we run a lot of filters on the content of our questions, you might encounter something that contains offensive language. Please flag any such questions (using the Flag option on the top right of the screen) and we will take appropriate action.
Have more questions? Review the Help Center (also accessible from the “Help and Feedback” menu item in the app).
Is there something we can improve on? Please give feedback directly in the app.
Thank you for trying the Crowdsource app. We’d love to hear your feedback on what you liked, and what we can improve, here in the comments or directly in the app itself.
Thanks for sharing this @AnuragB I found it quite easy to make a bunch of contributions in just a few minutes. Nice way to kill some time and help people all at once
Esta interesante la aplicación es una manera de darle inteligencia humana, a mí me gusto por el momento la de los Sentimentn Analysis, me parece muy positiva la iniciativa, ya que la forma colaborativa como estas es la manera más rápida de mejorar las aplicaciones que se utilizan por personas de muchos países de lenguas diversas. ’
Provide a check box to indicate if an official name exist for non-local language.
As it is a place name, sometime it is not a “translation”, but a name given using different languages
Allow user to enter the Given name when that box is checked.
In reality, Small Shops just use Company Name as Shop Name. As a result of company registration requirement, Company Name normally contains some “descriptve” names about the business nature.
my suggestion is to ask user to separate the “descriptive” name and the “given name”, then provide the “translation” separately.
I hope in this way, it will allow the AI to learn about Company / Place anme formats and apply “translation” more smartly.
In Hong Kong Chinese culture, Given Names usually following pronouncation while translating from Chinese to English. Descriptive Names normally has proper English and is usually used.
But sometimes, the Chinese & English names just not match.
For Example: (These two names are in official Company Registration Record)
SOGO HONG KONG COMPANY LIMITED
崇光(香港)百貨有限公司
“百貨” normally means Department Store, but there is no corresponding part in the English name.
Similar should apply to District Names, Village Names, Community Names, Street Names, Development Names, Building Names, etc.
@FaridTDF , yeah, Sentiment Analysis is my favorite category too.
And I still get goosebumps thinking about how Translate technology is bringing people together in this world. I’m so easily able to exchange thoughts with a native Spanish speaker
@YK1001 Thank you for taking the time to explain it - I learnt something new
I’ll definitely take this up with the maps team that processes these translations, as well as our designers. I might have follow-on questions and will direct-message you with those.
I did not speak English well and used Google Translator. Please understand.
(Because I feel that Google Translator is better than writing in English).
A few months ago, I discovered this wonderful app as an occasion.
I wanted to help many travelers to visit Korea.
I used it a little bit every time in my life.
At first I started in Korean and I got used to it, so I also used English and Japanese options.
I think the really fantastic feature is “appraisal”.
Many travelers to Korea use Google Maps to search for destinations.
I thought I would have been uncomfortable every time I did that, but they can not see the feelings mixed up in the reviews. The Google translation functioned amazingly beautifully, but did not fully understand the feelings of the locals.
so it is very surprising that the locals inspect the anonymous texts and interpret the hidden feelings in the text.
The Crowdsource app is good but I felt that it would benefit from some additional incentive beyond just badges and a sense of pride in contributing to the improvement of services. Google Rewards offers Play credit (which is really helpful) but I’m sure it’s not a feasible solution, whereas being a local guide can unlock additional Google Drive space and other features. Surely there could be a similar reward for Crowdsource? It will lose its appeal quickly with badges alone, as I’ve already unlocked each available badge and I’m sure others will feel similarly.
I found it quite easy to make a bunch of contributions in just a few minutes. Nice way to kill some time and help people all at once 
