Cooliris: The easy way to search for media content

How would you like to be able to search YouTube videos without having to read an onslaught of text? Do you find that looking for pictures on google does not always give you the right results? Is the thought of shopping for items online, without seeing proper pictures, putting you off ? If these questions apply to you then I can recommend a fantastic application for you that will make life so much more easier when searching for media items. This application is called Cooliris.

Cooliris is an application that is specifically targeted towards people who prefer not to see blocks of text but rather colourful images and videos. Let’s be honest there just isn’t enought time in the day to look for everything so isn’t it better to filter out the text?

The graphical UI (user interface) is amazing. You are presented with a three dimensional wall with lots of windows neatly arranged and the content on this wall is set by the criteria entered into the search bar. For example, if you type in “Michael Jackson” into the search bar; there is a massive amount of media items associated with this artist. You are given lots of video performances, high or low quality images or pictures of albums that are available to buy. It’s just that simple.

So you may be thinking, “there is only so many windows that can fit on the screen; am I going to have to open a different page to access more of the content?” – This is where Cooliris gets its cool from. There is a 3d rendering feature where you can pull the windows that you have already viewed to the towards the left to load even more content. It does this in such a way so as to emulate walking down a room with each window being presented on the wall. It’s a cinematic experience.

Searches can be refined to a specific internet genre; for example, you can only search for videos on YouTube or images in Flickr. After that, there is no limitation to what you can search for. This application will keep you busy for hours.

In addition to all this, Cooliris allows you to have a special account where it remembers your previous searches ; much in the same way YouTube does.

The application is available direct from Cooliris and it is also available as an iphone application. The iPhone application makes great use of multi-touch.

Overall I would rate this as an amazing application and it’s a must for any Firefox user. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.