It’s old news (Boing Boing and Slashdot covered it a month ago), but Flickr’s patent application is a bit troublesome. It’s not that they’re trying to patent tagging (they’re not), it’s that they’re trying to patent the things library folks have been wanting to do (and in some cases actually doing) for some time.

Media objects, such as images or soundtracks, may be ranked according to a new class of metrics known as ”interestingness.“ These rankings may be based at least in part on the quantity of user-entered metadata concerning the media object, the number of users who have assigned metadata to the media object, access patterns related to the media object, and/or a lapse of time related to the media object.

See, interestingness is what you get when you link two or more metrics — think $interestingness = ($circulation * $comments * $rating); — together to get a number you can rank items by. I’d been playing with that sort of thing with bsuite, does that mean I might be subject to a lawsuit?

flickr, interestingness, ip, patent, ranking

Related:

• The Flickr Is A Series Of Tubes
• Tomorrow In Human Computer Interaction
• This Is What Social Software Can Do
• Tags Done Right
• Social Software Works For Organizations Too

Posted November 30, 2006 by Casey
Categories: Libraries & Networked Information, Technology. Tags: flickr, interestingness, ip, patent, ranking.

No Comments

No comments yet.

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI

Leave a comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

 

User contributed tags for this post:

flickr interstingness (14) - interstingness (13) - flickr patent (5) - patent (5) - arabk sex (4) - flickr interestingness patent (2) - www.flickr.sexcom (2) - foto arabk sex (2) - what is flickr interstingness (2) - patent application (2) - 6399380694668 (2) - flickr sexy arab image (2) - flickr patent for tagging (1) - flickr Patent Application (1) - news flickr patent interesting (1) - tagging patent right flickr (1) - flickr patents (1) - sexyarabimage (1) - flickr interestingness patent understand (1) - flickr slashdot patents (1) - patent flickr (1) - porn (1) - how to get indian patent application number in site (1) - interstingness flickr (1) - turk patent (1) - Flickr Interstingness How (1) - facebook tagging patent (1) - flickr Interestingness rss (1) - interstingness 2005 (1) - patent tagging (1) - how to get patent application number (1) - flickr application (1) - image OR picture OR photo OR foto comment OR commentary (1) - Video clip sexy arabk (1) -