Media Browser: An Example of Metadata-Based Browsing

Current methods for finding relevant content, especially in media-rich web environments, suggest that metadata is critical for accurate and efficient information retrieval. We describe a Media Browser tool, which enables users to access content by visually browsing and searching metadata that is stored in a distributed fashion over the web. The basic constraint imposed by the Media Browser tool is that the distributed metadata can be represented in XML which uses XLink semantics (and preferably defined with XML Schema). The Media Browser tool enables users to access content from a single interface from which they can maintain their own information landscapes, which comprise links to metadata of interest to the user