Cooliris and Spotify

Two new web services - well new to me - that I've been enjoying these past few days are Cooliris and Spotify. Cooliris enables you to search web images in a way that presents them in one big browser-friendly mass. You can also use it on your web-based albums. I would imagine it would be useful for professional photographers seeking to check out copyright infringements. Like a lot of these things, you discover their value when you start using them.

Spotify has a large collection of music tracks that can be played straight from your computer. It doesn't have everything out there but I was surprised by just what it did have. The site has none of the royalties issues faced by some music swapping sites. All you need do is hook it up to your amplifier and you never need to play another CD. There is a catch - it runs advertisements periodically. These can be removed for a monthly subscription fee of £9.99. Or there's a day pass for 99p - good for parties. So you may choose to stick with your CDs after all but it's great for checking out music you might want to collect.