TechBays

Koollage is a web app that lets you create playable blogs or plogs. Plogs may also refer to pod blogs. A pod is a micromedia package of content such as images, videos, web pages, slides, etc. A Koollage blog allows you to “play” these blogs and add comments or ratings, embed in a website, share with other friends, or rearrange the presentation play.

Koollage is a microblog that can be embedded in a horizontal way (box 3 below) or in a vertical way (box 1 below), and can be shown in a website or a mobile phone (see iPhone support below.)

Here is the homepage view.

Click here for a fullscreen view.

In the view above, sections 1 and 3 show you how Koollage will look like in an iPhone or iTouch view. You navigate a list of plogs and predefined items (e.g. CNN, Amazon, etc.) and once you select a plog the plog will play in section 3.

The look and feel of Koollage is styled after Apple’s iPhone. iPhone users get the best deal out of this app. Here:

Selecting  featured | Super Bowl 2008 Top Ads will show the following section 3 (image below.) Then you can play the blog. Or pause, rate, embed, rearrange, copy, and other functions. This is the kool part of Koollage. And neatly viewable in an iPhone or iTouch. A Youtube pod will play the video via the integrated service of YouTube in the iPhone or iTouch.

Koollage is an early stage start-up, in beta, and based in Cupertino. Koollage’s CEO is Mythili Sankaran.

The app tests shows the following issues.

Issues

1. Creation of new plog is confusing. Process can follow simplicity of Tumblr. It should tell users once you click Create Empty Pod what’s happening next. There’s just no clue whatever what to do next in the activity page.
2. Available toolbar support to add content can take about more than an hour to complete. No, in my experience it has already taken me about 3 hours waiting but the plog I created (Internet Games) is still not updated. Koollage should at least notify users if service is down or whatever.
3. Feature page tells you you can change photo, but it may take you half an hour looking for the function to do just that. Once you get it, system will give you an error. See images below.

I cannot recommend creating plogs at this point. Some of the issues outlined above may frustrate you. If we get an explanation we’ll let you know. I suggest though that you go sign in and use current Koollage plogs available, like CNN, ESPN, BBC, Amazon to test-drive the service. There is a widget you can add for Blogger and Typepad users.

The look and feel is very well adapted to the iPhone or iTouch. There is promise with Koollage — as I was testing I found the presentation in a mobile device (iPhone or iTouch) apt for social viewing and interaction.

Reference screenshots

Toolbar feature too slow to be received by server. Both for Firefox and IE.

Please make the Change Image function easier to identify.

Once I found it though Koollage gave me this error.

It took me hours and hours to refresh if the plogs have been updated. Only to see this all the time.

I hope they fix these issues.

Note: I found the Pepsi Ad via Koollage featured plog.