Media-driven browsing

1. A machine-implemented browsing method, comprising:

performing a context search based on information associated with at least one media object, wherein the performing of the context search comprises searching a first database of indexed references to web pages and other documents based on search criteria derived from information extracted from the at least one media object, wherein the performing of the context search further comprises generating a context search query from information associated with the at least one media object, transmitting the context search query to a first search engine operable to query the first database in response to receipt of the context search query, and receiving a first search response from the first search engine;

performing a context-sensitive search based on results of the context search, wherein the performing of the context-sensitive search comprises searching a second database of indexed references to web pages and other documents based on search criteria derived from the results of the context search, wherein the performing of the context-sensitive search further comprises generating a context-sensitive search query from the first search response, transmitting the context-sensitive search query to a second search engine operable to query the second database in response to receipt of the context-sensitive search query, and receiving a second search response from the second search engine; and

presenting information derived from results of the context-sensitive search.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the generating comprises extracting one or more search criteria of the context search query from the associated information.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the extracting comprises obtaining search criteria from metadata associated with the at least one media object.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the extracting comprises obtaining at least one keyword from the at least one media object.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the generating comprises translating the context search query into a native format of the first search engine.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the context-sensitive search query comprises extracting one or more search criteria of the context-sensitive search query from the first search response.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the extracting comprises obtaining at least one keyword from the first search response.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the presenting comprises extracting the results of the context-sensitive search from the second search response, and presenting the extracted search results.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising presenting a list of candidate search engines from which a user selects the second search engine.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising presenting one or more media objects in a collection.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the presenting of the one or more media objects comprises presenting a hierarchical tree representing an ordering of the media objects in the collection.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein at least one node of the hierarchical tree represents a cluster of multiple ones of the media objects in the collection.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the presenting of the one or more media objects comprises presenting ones of the media objects corresponding to a user-selected portion of the hierarchical tree.

14. A machine-implemented browsing method, comprising:

generating a context search query from meta data associated with at least one image-based media object;

transmitting the context search query to a first search engine, wherein the generating of the context search query comprises extracting one or more geographic tags associated with the at least one image-based media object, and incorporating information derived from the extracted geographic tags into the context search query;

receiving a first search response from the first search engine;

generating a context sensitive search query from the first search response, wherein the generating of the context-sensitive search query comprises extracting from the first search response one or more keywords describing to one or more points of interest identified based on the extracted geographic tags, and incorporating the one or more keywords into the context-sensitive search query;

transmitting the context-sensitive search query to a second search engine;

receiving a second search response from the second search engine; and

presenting information derived from the second search response.

15. A machine-implemented browsing system, comprising:

a computer-readable medium storing computer-readable instructions, and

a computer processor coupled to the computer-readable medium, operable to execute the instructions, and based at least in part on the execution of the instructions operable to perform operations comprising:

performing a context search based on information associated with at least one media object, wherein the performing of the context search comprises searching a first database of indexed references to web pages and other documents based on search criteria derived from the information extracted from the at least one media object, wherein the performing of the context search further comprises generating a context search query from information associated with the at least one media object, transmitting the context search query to a first search engine operable to query the first database in response to receipt of the context search query, and receiving a first search response from the first search engine;

performing a context-sensitive search based on results on the context search, wherein the performing of the context-sensitive search comprises searching a second database of indexed references to web pages and other documents based on search criteria derived from the results of the context search, wherein the performing of the context-sensitive search further comprises generating a context-sensitive search query from the first search response, transmitting the context-sensitive search query to a second search engine operable to query the second database in response to receipt of the context-sensitive search query, and receiving a second search response from the second search engine; and

presenting information derived from results of the context-sensitive search.

16. A machine-readable medium storing machine-readable instructions for causing a machine to perform operations comprising:

performing a context search based on information associated with at least one media object, wherein the performing of the context search comprises searching a first database of indexed references to web pages and other documents based on search criteria derived from information extracted from the media object, wherein the performing of the context search further comprises generating a context search query from information associated with the at least one media object, transmitting the context search query to a first search engine operable to query the first database in response to receipt of the context search query, and receiving a first search response from the first search engine;

performing a context-sensitive search based on results of the context search, wherein the performing of the context-sensitive search comprises searching a second database of indexed references to web pages and other documents based on search criteria derived from the results of the context search, wherein the performing of the context-sensitive search further comprises generating a context-sensitive search query from the first search response, transmitting the context-sensitive search query to a second search engine operable to query the second database in response to receipt of the context-sensitive search query, and receiving a second search response from the second search engine; and

presenting information derived from results of the context-sensitive search.