BigShinyThing

Move over Flickr. New-kid-on-the-blog (beta release, currently offline, better call the VCs in for another cash injection) photo-sharing/search site Riya is stirring up a storm.

Why? Advanced image processing, including in-image face recognition and text search. Want to find every picture of your ex? With Riya those pictures don’t have to be hand-tagged ‘insensitive slob’ to come up in your search results — the software knows who (and what) is in each image. ‘Find more pictures with this person in’ is just a click away. Or will be, when they iron out the bugs. Vapourware? Maybe. Or maybe, just maybe they really have what it takes, and simply decloaked a little early — nothing is riskier for a tech startup than to be in the media spotlight a couple of months before the product is ready for a credible beta release!

Either way they’ve been impressing the tech opinion formers. Check out CNET’s review and slideshow, or Riya’s award-winning presentation at the DEMO 06 techfest.

The dark side of Riya is in the implications that content-based search — particularly face-based search — have for privacy. That’s a wait-and-see. Certainly another interesting tool for the avid cyber-stalker.

We’ll keep you in the picture as the story progresses…