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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 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

Posted by the Google Search Team

Conversations with Green Gurus puts green marketing into a new perspective. Looking differently...creates new ideas for the new reality facing us.


Green marketing is a matter of prioritization for both companies and consumers. It's time to think of green marketing differently. It's not about whether people with "pay more" for green.

It's about a tipping point in our civilization. Green motivations include such strategies as...

• Avoid risk
• Save money
• Improve health
• Disclosure of key metrics
  
• Survive!

Do something!  Try something better! 

"Green marketing is about solutions and making progress!" says Grant.

Safe and Sustainable by the Book

As part of its commitment to green and sustainable safety concepts, the Code Council is excited to develop a new set of green codes under the multi-year initiative called "IGCC: Safe and Sustainable by the Book."

This initiative will include collaboration from the Council's closest allies and pre-eminent thought leaders in green building, as well as outreach and feedback from our members and the general public.

International Code Council (ICC) is a membership association dedicated to building safety and fire prevention, develops the codes used to construct residential and commercial buildings, including homes and schools.

I read the following note about industry award programs from a member of a trade association recently:

"...awards programs function as a way for groups to recognize and value
contributions by the membership for some perceived greater good. 
    While it has been argued that they are all just an elaborate attempt at
self-aggrandizement, I am convinced that those people who make the effort to
enter take the first step toward personal and business evaluation. 
    For me it's never been about winning and losing as much as it's about establishing
comparable or improving bench marks of relative quality.  'Where do I stack
up against the competition?' is determined by the way I craft a submission." K. Brown

Consumption is at the heart of the sustainability challenge and many aspects of how we communicate today drive unsustainable consumption.

Marks & Spencer's in London have taken CSR to the next generation... sustainable business model making.  They have created "Plan A" to explain to themselves and their tribe that there is no Plan B... that we have to make considerable changes to the way we live today...if we are to survive on this planet.

"Sustainability will be a key issue over the next decade, shaping government policy, business strategy and how we live our lives," say Lucy Calver and Mike Barry in Marketing Magazine.

As the world's population grows by billions and the Western way of consumption is adopted by hundreds of millions of people in the developing world, we are running out of the basics - trees, clean water, farmland and so on.

Point ONE: Many global businesses, including Nike, Unilever and Google, have recognised that the days of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are over.

TWO: 'Plan A' - because there is no Plan B when it comes to saving the planet.

THREE: 'Doing the right thing'. Our customers could connect with this simple sentiment that sum­med up our reasons for selling only Fairtrade coffee and tea, or using only free-range eggs.

FOUR: Consumers want business to do the 'heavy lifting' on sustainability, but you get more traction when consumers are given the opportunity to make some easy contributions themselves.

FIVE: A sustainable future will be achieved only when people feel they are part of a 'tribe' for change. They must be made aware they are not alone, but one among millions of individuals who are all making small changes that together make a big difference.


The businesses that will be prospering in a decade are those that are radically committed to becom­ing more sustainable. As important, they will also have found a way of communicating that change is necessary, possible and desirable.

Mike Barry is head of sustainable business and Lucy Calver is head of food and Plan A marketing at M&S

A number of orporations are now publicly committed to sustainability. But, beneath the public relations happy face, executives and managers are perplexed.

Many executives have families, and it would appear they have a human interest in a sustainable world for their families -- and that human heart is increasing seen among executives who have a genuine desire to work in an ethical and sustainable manner.  However, when the most conscientious of these executives engage with their stakeholders for that purpose, they sometimes are surprised by a generalized encounter of hardball politics,  hostile activists, self-interested elites, and unpredictable attacks. 

What executives must understand is that their own experience of their company's policies might not be the public's encounter.  However, if corporate executives need a guide for coping with the array of ideas, feelings, and experiences that can be thrown at them, this book can offer some clues.

Stakeholder Politics: Social Capital, Sustainable Development and The Corporation gives companies a "how to" guide for addressing the twin problems of maintaining political legitimacy, and promoting sustainable development.

"The text presents a typology of stakeholder networks that helps managers and community leaders identify and improve the social capital patterns in their own networks."  That's good, because green marketing -- or socially responsible behavior -- must start with internal purging and restoration of a system that deserves respect. 

Once executives know these patterns, they can move their networks towards those that foster sustainable community development.

Stakeholder Politics: Social Capital, Sustainable Development and The Corporation  describes vivid cases in which managers and community stakeholders have used the authors' approach successfully, and in addition provides managers with handy tools for predicting and avoiding community-level socio-political risk around stakeholder issues. With its proven and practical approach, Stakeholder Politics promises to be a valuable guide for managers and academics who are invested in sustainable development worldwide and stakeholder issues alike.

Greenleaf Publishing

	Stakeholder Politics Social Capital, Sustainable Development, and the Corporation Robert Boutilier 2009, Available Now Buy this book

New Industries from New Places The Emergence of the Hardware and Software Industries in China and India BY: Neil Gregory, Stanley Nollen, and Stoyan Tenev

We know it's a global world now.  But how does that affect the industry at the heart of US creativity and information leadership?  It's time to look at how China and India have -- and will continue to change the face and guts of information technology.

Over the past 15 years, the twin giants of Asia--China and India--have jumped on the opportunity provided by the IT revolution to turbocharge their economic growth.

India has become a software services powerhouse, while China churns out much of the world's IT hardware.

How did these countries achieve global competitiveness so quickly? Why did software predominate in one and hardware the other?

This book represents the first attempt to go beyond anecdote and generalization in discussing the unprecedented emergence of these new industries over such a short period.

New Industries from New Places  presents the first rigorous comparison of the growth performance of hardware manufacturing and software services sectors in China and India. It examines the economic context and the business environment for private enterprise in China and India, and considers how far differences in economic policies or the business environment can go in explaining the observed distinctions between the two.

The book concludes by evaluating explanations for the growth performance of hardware and software in each country, drawing conclusions for future economic policies and business strategies.

	New Industries from New Places The Emergence of the Hardware and Software Industries in China and India Neil Gregory, Stanley Nollen, and Stoyan Tenev 2009, Available Now Buy this book

Think Green Alliance offers the following services to help businesses outline a sustainability strategy with the goals of establishing a step-by-step plan with carbon reduction targets, using tools for sustainability and carbon measurement/management, as well as ensuring the sustainability plan meets business and ROI goals.

• Strategic Sustainability Blueprint Development
• Carbon Measurement, Reporting and Benchmarking
• Sustainability Audits and Reviews
• Sustainability Best Practices
• Sustainability Whitepapers and Research
• Custom Sustainability Consulting
• Sustainability Project Consulting
• Project Management

The Think Green Alliance is a community of businesses and organizations that are committed to providing environmentally and economically sustainable services, products and goods. As of February 2009, the Alliance membership represents a total of 159.7 billion dollars of annual global revenues and over 250,000 full-time employees.

The Alliance was founded in March 2008 by Jean Jerome Baudry of Baudry Cybernomics Corporation.

For more information, please contact Kim:
projects@thinkgreenalliance.com
416-915-4048 ext. 304