A variety of techniques for both (1) viewing multimedia-based information in accordance with user controls for speed and direction of the multimedia presentation and in accordance with a user selection device being in a particular location and (2) presenting multimedia data items. When a user device is within the defined area, the speed and direction control are on, and when it leaves the defined area, the speed and direction are off. Also described is a system using a browser tool for displaying multimedia data in accordance with these viewing techniques which are indices into multimedia presentations. A user selection is made by viewing the multimedia data items and control is transferred accordingly to an appropriate application to present a multimedia presentation corresponding to a selected multimedia data item. An index database of the multimedia data items is used as indices into the multimedia presentations.