News
Alamy seeking patent for new search technology
Alamy has announced that it is testing new search technology that will move images from the best collections to the top of search results. Alamy is calling the new technology AlamyRank and has applied for patents for two key technologies that make the new search approach unique in the stock photography industry. The new search engine will favor contributors who provide the best images and most accurate keywording and penalize those providing mediocre work or using inappropriate keywords, hoping their images will be seen more often. This new search addresses a key issue with the Alamy service where keywording is done by the contributors by providing an incentive to keyword appropriately.
According to James West the CEO of Alamy, AlamyRank (patents pending) creates a hierarchy of individual image suppliers based on the search activity of customers. To determine the rankings, Alamy records the number of times customers view larger previews and license images relative to the number of times the images have appeared in search results. The second software package, called the Diversity Algorithm (patents pending), will ensure that no individual supplier dominates any particular search. The Diversity Algorithm will disperse the images of even the highest-ranked suppliers so that image buyers see work from many different sources before seeing more images from the top-ranked suppliers.
"We think this is a huge breakthrough in terms of developing a market driven search engine that rewards talent and delivers high-quality images to the customer," asserted West. He said this is the first of several search engine improvements planned for the near future.
Posted in: Alamy, News, Stock Art Buyers, Stock Photo Companies
Comments(2)
post a comment »Mark, July 14, 2006 [#]
This, like many software patents these days is total BS.
Any search engineer with half a brain can figure this one out, and no doubt some already have. I doubt it will pass the test of being a ‘non-obvious’ patent, but then again this is the US Patent office were talking about so who knows.
I can’t blame Alamy for trying to patent whatever they can, but to send out a press release calling it a “huge breakthrough” is a bit ridiculous. Get over yourselves!
And “AlamyRank”?? Who’s the genius who thought of that name?
Mark S, July 27, 2006 [#]
I’m not quite sure how you can say it’s “BS” when you haven’t, I assume, seen the patent or been privy to the source code. I also have to assume that this is the British patent office we’re talking about since Alamy is a British company.
If it does what Alamy claims it will do, it’ll be a good thing for both contributors and buyers. How about we wait and see before calling it “BS”?
Mark