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Auto Captioning for Google's YouTube Is Now Available

By Carolyn on March 4, 2010 2:38 PM
Google's YouTube video caption feature was developed in 2008. In November of 2009 Google released auto-captioning for a small, select group of partners. Auto-captioning combines some of the speech-to-text algorithms found in Google's Voice Search to automatically generate video captions when requested by a viewer.

The video owner can also download the auto-generated captions, improve them, and upload the new version. Viewers can even choose an option to translate those captions into any one of 50 different languages -- all in just a couple of clicks.

Google is now opening up auto-captions to all YouTube users.

There will even be a "request processing" button for un-captioned videos that any video owner can click on if they want to speed up the availability of auto-captions. It will take some time to process all the available video, so here are some things to keep in mind:
  • While Google plans to broaden the feature to include more languages in the months to come, currently, auto-captioning is only for videos where English is spoken.
  • Just like any speech recognition application, auto-captions require a clearly spoken audio track. Videos with background noise or a muffled voice can't be auto-captioned. President Obama's speech on the recent Chilean Earthquake is a good example of the kind of audio that works for auto-captions.
  • Auto-captions aren't perfect and just like any other transcription, the owner of the video needs to check to make sure they're accurate. In other cases, the audio file may not be good enough to generate auto-captions. But please be patient -- our speech recognition technology gets better every day.
  • Auto-captions should be available to everyone who's interested in using them. We're also working to provide auto-captions for all past user uploads that fit the above mentioned requirements. If you're having trouble enabling them for your video, please visit Google's Help Center: this article is for uploaders and this article is for viewers.
For content owners, the power of auto-captioning (AND translation) is significant.

With just a few quick clicks your videos can be accessed by a whole new global audience. And captions can make is easier for users to discover content on YouTube.

Twenty hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. Making some of these videos more accessible to people who have hearing disabilities or who speak different languages, not only represents a significant advancement in the democratization of information, it can also help foster greater collaboration and understanding.

Google Changes the Way We Search For Information

By Carolyn on January 10, 2010 3:31 AM
Google search capabilities have changed and increased significantly over the past year, and more computer users and mobile device users are using Google and other search engines more than ever.  It's just so ... easy!  Much easier than playing telephone tag to ask a knowledgeable friend or expert a question... and that's the search engine's secret sauce. Ease of use...availability...and always having an answer, even if it takes a bit of shoveling of fertilizer to find the right connection or information.

The searching action has become part of the "media" of today. And online search is growing much faster than other methods of information distribution.

Google Leads the Search Pack

It's always fascinating to glimpse the collective consciousness of Google users.

Beyond search queries rising for Michael Jackson, swine flu, Twitter and Lady Gaga, what else did Google searches reveal last year?

  • Proportion of Google users in the United States making more than one query per day:
    7 out of 10
  • Proportion of Google users in the United States making more than 10 queries per day:
    1 out of 7
  • Fraction of Google queries, duplicates excluded, never seen before: More than 1/3
  • Fraction of Google queries, duplicates included, never seen before: More than 1/5
  • Country with the greatest increase in Google web search traffic in 2009 vs. 2008: Indonesia*
  • Approximate percentage of Internet users in Indonesia: 11.1%*
  • Average amount of time it takes a user to finish entering a query: 9 seconds
  • Average amount of time it takes Google to answer a query: Less than 1/4 second
  • Number of search quality improvements made by Google in 2009: 540, ~1.5 each day
  • Proportion of Google result pages that show a map in search results: 1 in 13
  • Average increase in driving distance on weekends vs. weekdays on Google Maps: 11km
  • Median distance from a user's location to ice skating rinks found on Google Maps: 30km
  • Median distance from a user's location to ski resorts found on Google Maps: 300km


Unless otherwise noted, most of these statistics are based on Google's U.S. weekday traffic. 

Posted by the Google Search Team

Selling Cities as the Ultimate Sustainability Model

By Carolyn on December 10, 2009 8:28 AM
green marketing of green metropolis How do you go up against environmental scientists?  You find a solution that delivers 3X the benefits -- and "Green Metropolis" tries to sell high density living such as New York City as the most sustainable solution of all...

New Yorkers' per capita greenhouse gas emissions are less than a third of the average American's.
Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability

While the conventional wisdom condemns it as an environmental nightmare, Manhattan is by far the greenest place in America, argues this stimulating eco-urbanist manifesto.

According to Owen (Sheetrock and Shellac), staff writer at the New Yorker, New York City is a model of sustainability: its extreme density and compactness--and horrifically congested traffic--encourage a carfree lifestyle centered on walking and public transit; its massive apartment buildings use the heat escaping from one dwelling to warm the ones adjoining it; as a result, he notes, New Yorkers' per capita greenhouse gas emissions are less than a third of the average American's.

The author attacks the powerful anti-urban bias of American environmentalists like Michael Pollan and Amory Lovins, whose rurally situated, auto-dependent Rocky Mountain Institute he paints as an ecological disaster area. The environmental movement's disdain for cities and fetishization of open space, backyard compost heaps, locavorism and high-tech gadgetry like solar panels and triple-paned windows is, he warns, a formula for wasteful sprawl and green-washed consumerism. Owen's lucid, biting prose crackles with striking facts that yield paradigm-shifting insights. The result is a compelling analysis of the world's environmental predicament that upends orthodox opinion and points the way to practical solutions.

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. 

Top 110 Trends in Mobile App Marketing

By Carolyn on November 20, 2009 9:49 AM
Smartphones are taking over a lot of the content delivery market.  With embeds such as GPS, it is making the phone a portable computer that makes life and work more immediate.

Apps -- those bite size computer applications that are specialized, and so very global are great for companies and organizations to create or have created if you need immediate interactivity with your clients or prospects.  For instance, if you have a chain of locations... or can deliver information over the phone...those are perfect applications for "apps". 

CIO Zone has listed the Top 10 Trends for Mobile Apps and they are a window into our changing world ... and world of marketing.  Check them out:

Top 10 Trends for Mobile Apps
Money Transfer
Location-Based Services
Mobile Search
Mobile Browsing
Mobile Health Monitoring
Mobile Payment
Near Field Communication Services
Mobile Advertising
Mobile Instant Messaging
Mobile Music

Free Solar Electric People-movers for Events

By Carolyn on September 4, 2009 12:44 PM

Founded on the principles of national and community involvement, corporate responsibility, and most importantly, environmental responsibility, The Solar Electric Vehicle Company is using an innovative business strategy and partnering with corporations committed to combating climate change and dependence on foreign oil.

The Solar Electric Vehicle Company will provide clean and reliable solar-electric shuttles to communities and institutions cost free.

  • No gas
  • No emissions
  • Free energy from the sun

The Solar Electric Vehicle Company

Solarev believes that their business model can help bridge the gap between environmental change, and fiscal responsibility; transport needs and environmental concerns; as well as between governments and citizens.

The company believes it has developed a business plan where all can prosper. While the profitability relies on having as many solar electric vehicles in use as possible, its success relies on the impact the solar electric vehicles will be able to make.

For every solar electric vehicle in a community, citizens will have access to pollution-free transportation. For every vehicle at a university campus, more students will be able to cut down on their gas bills, as well as feel more secure traveling on campus.

For every vehicle at any park, museum, garden, or zoo, there will be one less dirty, costly, petrol burning vehicle which keeps us dependent on foreign oil, and which keeps our economy inescapably tied to the price of a barrel of oil. For every solar electric vehicle in America, more people will be able to breathe cleaner air, creating a healthier environment.

Information at www.Solarevco.com

Free Solar Electric People-movers for Events

By Carolyn on September 4, 2009 12:44 PM

Founded on the principles of national and community involvement, corporate responsibility, and most importantly, environmental responsibility, The Solar Electric Vehicle Company is using an innovative business strategy and partnering with corporations committed to combating climate change and dependence on foreign oil.

The Solar Electric Vehicle Company will provide clean and reliable solar-electric shuttles to communities and institutions cost free.

  • No gas
  • No emissions
  • Free energy from the sun

The Solar Electric Vehicle Company

Solarev believes that their business model can help bridge the gap between environmental change, and fiscal responsibility; transport needs and environmental concerns; as well as between governments and citizens.

The company believes it has developed a business plan where all can prosper. While the profitability relies on having as many solar electric vehicles in use as possible, its success relies on the impact the solar electric vehicles will be able to make.

For every solar electric vehicle in a community, citizens will have access to pollution-free transportation. For every vehicle at a university campus, more students will be able to cut down on their gas bills, as well as feel more secure traveling on campus.

For every vehicle at any park, museum, garden, or zoo, there will be one less dirty, costly, petrol burning vehicle which keeps us dependent on foreign oil, and which keeps our economy inescapably tied to the price of a barrel of oil. For every solar electric vehicle in America, more people will be able to breathe cleaner air, creating a healthier environment.

Information at www.Solarevco.com

Is this who we are, California?

By Carolyn on August 3, 2009 2:35 PM
Marc Cooper's cover story for The Nation:
Let's make it easy to understand. California might be suffering its worst drought in decades, but the entire Golden State is underwater. Goodbye to those timeworn, bubble-gum-colored fantasies of the Endless Summer, California Girls and gleaming, pool-pocked suburbs. Hello to a new set of descriptors: "Bankrupt." "Ungovernable." "California Nightmare." "Failed State."

Read the full story here.

1249067574-large.jpg

SolutionsForGreen.com -- Free green products and services directory listing

By Carolyn on July 24, 2009 1:06 PM
Do you have (or know of someone who has) a company producing green, sustainable, or high performance solutions?

We are launching a "green directory with a difference" -- you get a real opportunity to tell your green solutions story in the listing!  Up to 600 WORDS...and your listing can be included in FIVE categories. 

We also include BOTH Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer categories.  IF we don't have the right category for your solution -- let us know and we'll seriously consider adding it.

The SolutionsforGreen.com site is highly "search engine optimized" and the listings will probably appear higher on Google searches than your own company's listings for key word phrases.  We work hard at building a robust platform of sites to help drive traffic to the directory.  We're serious about greening our world...and want to help others who are also serious about the challenge facing us.  And who have solutions!

We would  love to have your company, nonprofit organization...or even public agency list your green products, green services...and green programs.  You don't have to be in the commercial market.  You just need SOLUTIONS!  Employee programs.  Festivals. Innovator groups. The broader the variety of solutions, the better! 

"Necessity is the mother of invention"...my mother taught me.  And we have necessity.  Now it's time to implement some great, innovative solutions.

And then get the word out for replicating good results.  So add your listing, already :-)

SolutionsforGreen.com

Green Businesses Get Listed in SolutionsForGreen.com

By Carolyn on July 21, 2009 5:01 PM
Sun Marketing

GrEEnCollarEdu.net, a service of HVACReducation.net

Mercier Corporation

Carlstrom Productions, Inc.

Green Mary

Orangehalo

Republic Flag

Community Environmental Services, Inc. (CES)

Native Springs Nursery

Oster and Associates

Macus Trade

Atlas Embroidery

Echo Paper Store

Green Career Tracks

Starting Up Green

Cliff Allen Consultant

Michael Lemke Consulting

HVACR Education





Online Marketing Growing with Qualified Leads

By Carolyn on July 17, 2009 7:36 AM
The fourth annual Industrial Marketing Trends Survey conducted by GlobalSpec shows that 48% of industrial marketers are shifting a greater percentage of their budget online, but less than one-third of industrial marketers are allocating more than 50% of their budget online.

Based on GlobalSpec research, here is a look at today's top trends in online marketing:

The economy is impacting marketing approaches and objectives.
In light of the current economic climate, customer acquisition, lead generation and customer retention have become more important than ever before.

  • 44% of respondents to a recent survey stated that customer acquisition is their primary marketing goal,
  • 29% indicating that lead generation is most important.
  • 13% indicated that customer retention is their primary goal in 2009, up from just five percent in 2008.

Companies are still focused on gaining new customers, while maintaining their current client base.

Measurement is key.
The demand for marketing accountability is stronger than ever, with smart marketers devoting resources to programs that can be measured.

  • 69% stated that they will closely evaluate the performance of marketing options and reduce or eliminate non-performing programs,
  • 53% are choosing marketing programs that are measurable.

Online programs naturally lend themselves to measurement, as they allow you to track exposure, clicks and conversions -- demonstrating the performance of your marketing.

Lead quality trumps lead quantity.
Respondents to our survey stated that the quality of leads is the most important factor when deciding where to allocate their marketing budget.

Lead quality scored 9 out of 10 in importance, while lead quantity scored 7.3.

Sales would rather have a handful of highly qualified leads than a long list of anonymous Web clicks. Target online programs where prospects are searching for information, products and services, delivering quality leads with contact information -- offering your company sales opportunities instead of anonymous clicks.

Meeting Your Goals with Online Marketing
It's important to continue to market to and stay in front of customers and prospects, despite the realities of the current economy.

Ask media partners how they can specifically help you meet your marketing objectives, whether they are lead generation, brand visibility, penetration of new markets or all of the above.

 
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