Flickr 'machine tags'... just don't call it RDF

O'Reilly Radar: Flickr Launches Machine Tags

Great idea from Flickr: extending server-side 'tagging' support to understand a wee bit more fielded structure. Plus, avoiding highfalutin' RDFishness, in name or format, by calling the feature 'machine tags' and reusing an ad hoc intuitive syntax already employed by many taggers.

You can surely guess what these tags mean:

geo:lat=45.110133335
geo:lon=7.67979417
address:street=Via Guglielmo Reiss Romoli 164
address:postalcode=10148
flickr:user=straup
flora:tree=coniferous
medium:paint=oil

Bitzi has been considering a similar semi-structured tagging feature; looks like I can tear up my syntax notes and get with a now-established program.

Not sure 'machine tags' is the best name, though -- they're not only going to be entered or interpreted mechanistically by software. Perhaps 'fielded tags' or even just 'named tags'?

Tags: tags, flickr, bitzi, rdf, syntax, metadata, fields,

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