This past June, Google-owned YouTube launched a new way to search for political videos on its YouChoose page:
Using speech recognition technology, the new function allows users to search for videos based on keywords that are spoken in the video. The resulting videos include yellow markers on the play bar to indicate where the keyword is uttered inviting the user to jump to that spot in the video. And if the user mouses over the highlighted area, a small overlay pops up with the phrase that includes the keyword, to provide some context.
Some critics have complained that providing only snippets of the entire transcript promotes people’s reliance on buzzwords to be informed and can result in information being taken out of context.
Currently, Google is testing the application’s success to determine whether or not it should introduce it to other parts of the site.
Google wasn’t the first to put this speech-to-text technology to use. Post 9/11, American defense contractors have been working on mining through online videos for possible terrorist threats.
Other video search engines such as Blinkx, Everyzing and Delve
are also accessing the technology.
If users take a liking to the function, Google will very likely use it in their video advertising platform.
For example, instead of buying the current InVideo unit that includes an overlay advertisement that appears 15 seconds into a sponsored video, organizations can choose the exact location for the overlay advertisement to appear, based on keyword popularity.
Google must continue to improve its speech recognition technology in order to encompass video with speech that is not as straightforward. This may require some human computation.
But once the technology is perfected we should see a massive increase in the amount of valuable information at our fingertips.
Comment Thread ()
