Yesterday — I was trying to post a comment to a blog post I had read….and got caught up in the confusion of captcha. I had to reshuffle the captcha over 12 times before I found one that I could read. (and I just recently purchased new glasses.) I was frustrated …. and I knee-jerked my frustration to twitter.
Lately, I have felt invisible on twitter — so my twitter was much more a muttering under my breath rather than an true expectation that anyone would respond.
But surprisingly someone did — and his one little response — TAUGHT ME A GREAT DEAL.
I read Jeff’s tweet and ran over to http://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_collaboration.html and watched a Ted Talk given by Luis von Ahn (one of the creators of Captcha) where he explained how captcha is MUCH more than just random sequences of letters and numbers that need to be typed in by the user to prove they are a human.
- I did not know about the tie-in with captcha and digital books.
- I did not know about re-captcha and captcha art.
- I did not know that one goal of the use of captcha will help wikipedia be available in many more languuages.
And I did not know how my “use” of captcha could be much bigger than a small frustration.
I invite you to watch the video — and then also please check out http://duolingo.com/ — (I am learning German).
And big thanks to Jeff for seeing my frustration — and then turning it into a learning moment.
Danke.
Jen
Thanks for sharing this Jen! I too have felt the frustration – this TED talk will make me much less frustrated when I stumble on the Captcha challenge in the future!
Gail