You may have noticed today on Cooliris.com that we have a completely new logo and website design! We hope you enjoy our new look and feel of the website and find navigation easier and more intuitive. This change in our appearance reflects our evolution as a company and the evolution of our products. Just four years ago, our initial team of 8 talented engineers and visionaries released our first product, CoolPreviews, followed by Piclens in the following year, which has evolved into what you now know as Cooliris. Today, our company of 40 employees offers a portfolio of 4 different products that all offer a unique value proposition to consumers, publishers, and website owners alike. These are: Cooliris for Desktop, Cooliris for Mobile, Cooliris Express, and CoolPreviews. We’ve had over 20 million downloads across products to date!

In the past couple of years, we’ve seen a number of premium Cooliris Wall partnerships around the web, like the Wall Street Journal’s 2008 Year in Photos (our very first premium embedded Wall collaboration!), TV.com, the official Taylor Swift website, and the Hindustan Times! The widespread adoption of Cooliris Walls around the web led us to develop Cooliris Express, the easy tool to embed your own Cooliris Wall onto any website or social network. Today, there have been over 10,000 Walls created with Cooliris Express, and 200 new Walls being created everyday!

In 2009, we also launched the Cooliris Publisher Network and one of our biggest ad campaigns to date with Infiniti/OMD.

Let’s not forget the very exciting Google partnership for the Nexus One superphone! Earlier this year, the Nexus One was launched with a supercool 3D Gallery application, which Google had tapped us to develop. Not too shabby!

Also on our new website is an early release of version 1.12 currently available exclusively on Cooliris.com. We’ll be adding additional functionality and putting out updates over the next couple of weeks, but if you want to get a sneak peek at version 1.12, check it out and send us feedback at feedback@cooliris.com!

We’ll also be rolling out a new SWF tonight with the new logo for those of you using the embedded Cooliris Wall. No action is required on your end, but you will eventually get the new logo on your Cooliris Wall.

With all of these changes, it’s only natural that our logo reflects our new identity as a company setting to revolutionize the web. Below we have a note from Robert Padbury, one of our previous visual designers as well as the creator of the new Cooliris logo, explaining the design philosophy of the logo.

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Since its inception, Cooliris has always used two rounded rectangles – one green, one blue – to stand as the identity of the company. The concept was that one square represented the web, and the other square represented the Cooliris context.

This notion of our logo is one of utility – what the product does, as opposed to identity – who the company is. This is why the company set out in the summer of 2008 to completely reinvent the Cooliris brand. We wanted to craft an identity, and not just convey what the product is.

Great logos tend to have five distinct qualities. They’re simple, memorable, timeless, versatile and appropriate. Many are visual interpretations of the name of the company, and with the name Cooliris, a concatenation of cool and iris, we have a fairly large visual library to work with.

For cool, there’s several meanings, including the cool half of the color spectrum, the temperature and the state of mind. From this it’s natural to choose blue, the coolest of the cool colors.

For ‘iris’, we can use the human eye, the ancient Greek goddess of rainbows, the flower and the component of the camera – the aperture.

The proportion between the inner circle and the outer circle is that of a normally dilated human iris, the three sections are inspired from the geometry of the flower, and the sections are cut in the shape of a camera’s iris.

Joining the new logo is a bold new typeface called Gotham. Gotham is a beautiful and timeless typeface developed by the New York type foundry Hoefler & Frere-Jones. It was inspired by the signage found in New York before there was ever a graphic-design profession. It has a bold timeless quality and it was also used as the typeface for the Obama ‘08 Presidential campaign.

The dots on the “i” character were rounded to both echo the logo and to also improve legibility of the logo at smaller sizes.

This is a bold new look for a bold new company.

Robert Padbury is now a freelance designer working in San Francisco. You can learn more by visiting his website at http://www.padbury.net.

Greetings to our Cooliris community! We are excited to announce a Beta release for Cooliris 1.12. (Available for IE, Firefox, and Safari)

New features in 1.12 include the ability to Favorite entire feeds as well as improved filtering for faster content navigation.

We would like to invite you to install Cooliris 1.12 and give us your feedback. Download here: http://www.cooliris.com/beta

Once you have installed and used the product, we would love to hear your feedback: http://www.cooliris.com/beta/feedback/

Thank you in advance for keeping the quality level of Cooliris at its highest. We really couldn’t do this without you.

Thanks to all those who participated in our Cooliris Scavenger Hunt and congratulations again to the winners!!  Below are the answers to all 9 clues so that you can compare your posts to the correct answers.  We really enjoyed looking at your favorite Cooliris sites (Clue 4) and personalized walls (Clue 6).  Don’t forget to check out the embedded Cooliris Wall of all the participants!!

Clue 1: The WSJ was one of the first to embed a COOLIRIS wall, capturing the 2008 YEAR IN PHOTOS

Answer: Wall Street Journal; 2008 Year in Photos

The Wall Street Journal was the first to put up a customized Cooliris wall on their site.  Each year the WSJ puts up pictures from the preceeding year that have to do with major international events, politics, athletics, travel etc.  In 2009, Cooliris teamed up with WSJ to make the photos from 2008 into a Wall where users could view the photos in our cool 3D interface.  Additionally, the WSJ used the Cooliris Wall the following year for the ‘House of the Day’ photos.  Check it out: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/house-of-the-day.html!

Clue 2: “Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone” Check out the Gallery on this star’s OFFICIAL SITE

Answer: Official Taylor Swift Website–Videos or Gallery

You would be hard pressed to find someone who had never heard the name ‘Taylor Swift’.  This 18 year old singer/songwriter made quite an impression in the music world.  She won best female video of 2009 for “You Belong With Me” and the 2010 People’s Choice Award for Favorite Female Artist.  In 2010, with all the buzz about talented Taylor Swift and tons of new fans visiting her website, the Taylor Swift website teamed up with Cooliris in order to present her pictures and videos in a Cooliris Wall.  The pictures and videos can be seen or streamed right on the wall and with one swipe of the mouse, hundreds of new photos and videos are available!

Clue 3: Cooliris teamed up with a charitable organization for the WALL AGAINST HUNGER -  find URL of this Cooliris Wall.

Answer: World Food Programme; Wall Against Hunger

It is always great for people to donate to a great cause, but it is even better when those who donate get recognition for their generosity.  In November 2008, The World Food Programme (WFP) used Cooliris to create a Wall called “The Wall Against Hunger” to recognize those who donated.  People can go to the WFP site, donate a certain amount of money, and post a picture on the Wall with a blurb about why they are donating or who they are donating on behalf of.  The Wall is still up and donations are going towards Haiti Relief following the 2010 earthquake.  Check out the Wall and make a difference!

Clue 4: Post a link to your favorite embedded Cooliris Wall.

Answer: You got to choose this one!! My personal favorite is…WSJ; House of the Day!

Clue 5: After a hard day of blogging, head to the COOLIRIS WATER COOLER for more NEXUS news

Answer: The Water Cooler (Cooliris Blog); Welcome to the Gallery

The Cooliris blog is updated daily with new information surrounding Cooliris.  When the Google Nexus One came out with the Gallery application created by Cooliris, we made a tutorial on how to use the Gallery app.  The Gallery allows users to view, navigate, edit and share their photos.  The photos can be sorted by date and place (if geo tagging is available), viewed in a panoramic landscape view by holding the phone on its side, and the photos have a cool 3D effect when tilting the phone side to side.  Stay tuned to the Cooliris blog for more Cooliris applications and versions!

Clue 6: Go to www.cooliris.com/express and make your own Cooliris Wall! Share the link of your Wall to Twitter or Facebook. For Facebook, you’ll need to share it to Facebook, then click on the link and paste the Cooliris-hosted URL of your Wall to our Facebook fan page.

Answer: Make your own wall at http://www.cooliris.com/express/! Take a look at mine!

Clue 7: Nexus fans got CRUNCHes in at this TECH blog and read the breaking Cooliris Gallery news

Answer: TechCrunch; Google Taps Cooliris To Enable Media Browsing On Nexus One

One of the biggest technology gadgets to hit the market at the start of the new year was the Google Nexus One phone.  There was a ton of anticipation as to what the phone would look like, what new features it would contain, and how it would differ from other touch screen phones that were already on the market.  On January 5, 2010, TechCrunch wrote about the new Gallery application on the Nexus One, which was created by Cooliris, and how it has enhanced the the photo viewing experience on the phone.  As TechCrunch put it, “the [Cooliris] Gallery is designed to scan quickly through thumbnails of media and loads the high-resolution versions on selection, making it easy for users to quickly browse their photos and videos”.

Clue 8: “Girl Next Door” Holly Madison shows off her PICS with Cooliris on her OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Answer: Official Holly Madision Website: Pics or Vids

In 2001, Holly Madison became famous for being one of Hugh Hefner’s seven girlfriends.  She lived in the Playboy mansion and eventually got her own show called “Girls Next Door” which documented the lives of Hugh and his girls.  The Holly Madison website recently used Cooliris to create an interactive Wall of her photos and videos.  Site visitors can panoramically scroll through the Cooliris Wall on Holly’s site to view all of her pictures from around the world, her talk show appearances, her interviews and much more!

Clue 9: Take and submit a picture holding the Cooliris wordmark logo [Regular] http://bit.ly/ciwm1 [Reverse] http://bit.ly/ciwm2

Answer: Take a look at Megan, one of our interns…Say cheese!

Hope you enjoyed the Scavenger Hunt and finding out a little more about Cooliris’ presence around the web. Let us know if you ever see us in the wild!

The Cooliris Scavenger Hunt officially concluded Sunday night and it was a huge success. Thank you to all those that participated! We hope that it was as fun for all of you as it was for the Scavenger Hunt Team here at the office.

On Monday afternoon, we had our random drawing for the grand prize winner. Participants who completed all 9 clues correctly were placed in a hat.

And the new owner of a brand new Nexus One is *drum roll please*… HEESUN LHO from San Francisco, California!

We also selected 10 additional runner-ups who will also receive a small prize. Congratulations to:

Chris Baumann
Amit Verma
Katie Gera
Brandon Cheng
Mohittihom
Pepperonijack
Andy Guo
PedjaDj
Ciaron
Harikrish

Check out all of our finalists (people who completed all 9 clues correctly) in the Cooliris Wall below!

Thank you all for participating and for helping to spread Cooliris. We appreciate any feedback and welcome any ideas for future contests!

[UPDATE] The Scavenger Hunt has officially started! Here are all 9 clues – deadline for submission is this Sunday, Feb. 14!

Clue 1: The WSJ was one of the first to embed a COOLIRIS wall, capturing the 2008 YEAR IN PHOTOS
Hint: Search for the newspaper website that used the Cooliris wall to show the year of 2008 in photos and post the URL of the page containing the Wall.

Clue 2: “Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone” Check out the Gallery on this star’s OFFICIAL SITE
Hint: Find for the Cooliris Wall displayed on this artist’s website and post the URL (there are two, post either one).

Clue 3: Head over to this AllTop page to find the clue details - http://my.alltop.com/ – Thanks to Guy Kawasaki for hosting!

Clue 4: Post a link to your favorite embedded Cooliris Wall.
Hint: Post the URL of the Wall on either Twitter or Facebook.

Clue 5: After a hard day of blogging, head to the COOLIRIS WATER COOLER for more NEXUS news
Hint: Find the most recent post that contains a certain video and post the URL.

Clue 6: Go to www.cooliris.com/express and make your own Cooliris Wall! Share the link of your Wall to Twitter or Facebook. For Facebook, you’ll need to share it to Facebook, then click on the link and paste the Cooliris-hosted URL of your Wall to our Facebook fan page.
Hint: Post the URL of your wall as your Facebook status or as a tweet. *Note your photos must be made public in order to be displayed.

Clue 7: Nexus fans got CRUNCHes in at this TECH blog and read the breaking Cooliris Gallery news
Hint: Search for the online technology website that blogged about Cooliris and the Nexus One. Post the URL of the article.

Clue 8: “Girl Next Door” Holly Madison shows off her PICS with Cooliris on her OFFICIAL WEBSITE
Hint: Search for the Cooliris Wall on this person’s website and post the URL. (There are two, post either one)

LAST CLUE – Clue 9: Take and submit a picture holding the Cooliris wordmark logo [Regular] http://bit.ly/ciwm1 [Reverse] http://bit.ly/ciwm2
Hint: Post your picture on Twitter using TwitPic or on Facebook. Make sure to include the URL of your uploaded photo. If you’re using a webcam, you’ll want to take it with the reverse image so it shows up in the picture correctly!

*General Hint: If you are having a difficult time finding the answer to the clues, try searching the capitalized words into Google.

*Note: If you are participating via Facebook, in addition to posting the answer as your status please make sure to post your answer on our fan page wall so that we can be sure to keep track of your answer.

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Starting on Monday, February 8, 2010, we are hosting a Cooliris online scavenger hunt! Participants will be led on a 5-day hunt around the web to find Cooliris-related content. Need incentive to participate? The grand prize winner will receive a free, unlocked NEXUS ONE Google phone!

Clues will be posted twice a day at 9am PST and 1pm PST until Friday, February 12 here on our blog, our Facebook Fan Page, Twitter account and Flickr group. Answer all 9 clues correctly and you will be entered in a raffle to win a Nexus One! Here’s how to submit your answers:

For Twitter:
1. Follow @Cooliris: twitter.com/Cooliris
2. For each clue: Tweet @Cooliris, your answer (hyperlink), followed by #IWantANexusOne
*If the hyperlink answer is too long, use a URL shortener service like bit.ly or TinyURL.

For Facebook Users:
1. Become a fan of Cooliris: www.facebook.com/Cooliris
2. For each clue: Post the answer (URL) in your status and tag Cooliris by typing ‘@Cooliris’ AND post your answer to the Facebook fan page wall.
*If you don’t tag Cooliris in your status then we will not be able to record your answers.

For Flickr Users:
1. Clues must be submitted through Facebook or Twitter (see above).
2. If you do not have a Facebook or Twitter account, you can sign up free of charge at www.facebook.com or www.twitter.com.

Additional hints will be posted the blog every time a new clue is released.

Check back to this blog post for the first clue on Monday at 9am PST, or follow us now on Facebook or Twitter so you’ll automatically get the daily clue updates. Happy Hunting!