Supporting semantic annotations in Flickr

In this paper we propose an extension to the tripartite folksonomy model to explicitly encode the semantics of tags. This enables stronger semantic services for the user such as search taking into account synonymy and hypernymy in a knowledge organisation system. However, automatic disambiguation is not yet possible and inputting the semantics of tags manually should not be a chore for the users. We thus propose a set of user interfaces features, illustrated in a working uploader for Flickr, that simplify the semantic annotation of photos before their publication. Finally, we discuss the enabling services for such interfaces, thus providing a complete description of the theoretical and practical issues of semantic annotations on Flickr.