Google’s user-generated video website, YouTube, will make available automatic speech recognition captioning for its video selection.

This new service could be revolutionary since it will open up a huge share of its content to people who are hearing-impaired, and will also lead to creating a network of videos that could be subtitled between many languages.

comScore’s January 2010 press release regarding online video usage reported that 170 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month of November.

Online video viewing continued to reach record levels in November with nearly 31 billion videos (viewers watched an average of 182 videos per viewer).

This feature will not only help out the hard of hearing, it will make them feel connected to society, especially one that continuously communicates itself through online video.

YouTube has offered closed captioned videos in the past, however, the captions were provided by the video producer, and represented a very small share of YouTube’s database.

Today, the new speech recognition technology will allow for automatic transcriptions on all of YouTube’s videos, even if a few funny errors happen to pop up here and there.

Apart from Michael Jackson’s death and the Iranian elections, two news stories that greatly increased total time spent for online video in the month of June, July continued to prove to be a strong month with 21.4 billion videos viewed during the month.

According to comScore Video Metrix, 158 million US Internet users watched videos in July, it’s an audience record hit. In addition, the duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes and the average viewer watched about 500 minutes of video.

Also in July, Google websites ranked as the top U.S. video property with 8.9 billion videos viewed, while YouTube accounted for more than 99% of all videos viewed.

Here are some more facts from the comScore research:

- 120.3 million viewers watched 8.9 billion videos on YouTube.com (74.1 videos per viewer)
- 48.2 million viewers watched 518.6 million videos on MySpace.com (10.8 videos per viewer)
- The average Hulu viewer watched 12.0 videos, totaling 1 hour and 13 minutes of videos per viewer
- The duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes

What do these results tell us? Well, for starters, these are all positive signs for the online video industry. Both the quality and amount of content being uploaded online is greatly increasing as well as the audience watching it.

Moreover, trends show that people are accessing the internet more and more while the average time spend watching TV is declining. In fact, Microsoft predicts that internet consumption is set to overtake TV by 2010 as the most used form of media.

It is very important for advertisers and marketers to take these predictions and statistics into consideration and brainstorm on any alternative strategy in which the two (TV/online videos) can converge in order to take advantage of both consumer audiences.

And most importantly, don’t forget to optimize your online videos for YouTube or any other website to achieve a good position on the search results!

Don’t you sometimes wonder how a video reaches 100,000 views? Usually it’s not necessarily a natural process in which this happens, it’s precisely why we call them ‘viral’, because they spread quickly and widely throughout the Internet.  People share them via emails, sms, social networks (Facebook), forums and blogs of course.

I just ran across a cool site dubbed Viral Video Chart by Unruly Media-the company behind the chart, which classifies videos according to popularity from the different video sharing sites, mainly the three most influential: YouTube, MySpace and Google Video.

Basically, the guys at Unruly Media browse several million blogs a day to see which videos are creating the most buzz. They take two main aspects into consideration, the number of times the video is linked to and the number of times the video is embedded.

Every day, Unruly Media posts up the top 20 videos of the day. Sometimes in their charts you might see videos from the previous day etc, if not, that means they’re obviously not popular anymore and a new list is then cooked up featuring hot, new content.

A cool aspect of the site is that for every video featured on the Top 20 chart, they include colorful line charts and pie graphs displaying a recap on the total views, buzz by language, trends and an entire list of all the blog posts that have made reference to a particular video.

I’ll leave you now with a couple videos taken from today’s Top 20 chart which have definitely made their way into the headlines these days:

CarreerBuilder.com

Cadbury Dairy Milk

Who’s not a Family Guy fan? Even I am. Think about having a similarly cool animation, only this time, online.

In September, Google together with Family Guy  creator, Seth MacFarlane, will be launching a new cartoon called “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy,” to be streamed online through AdSense. This being Google’s innovative strategy to try out video distribution on the Internet, which many are betting millions on in anticipation to its utter success.

The key to all this is how Google intends to follow through with the distribution of such. The initial idea will be serviced by the Google Content Network, which will run “Calvacade,” in place of static ads, on select sites that are popular with MacFarlane’s target audience. In addition, advertising may be inserted within these clips in two ways: preroll- this being a short commercial before the actual video starts rolling and/or banner ads, which will be placed at the bottom of the videos with perhaps a possible, ‘this is brought to you by’ welcoming message.

According to the New York Times, the partnership with Mr. MacFarlane represents a bold step into the distribution business, one that, if successful, will surely send shock waves through the entertainment business. Simultaneously, Kim Malone,director of sales and operations for AdSense claims that Google has “recreated the mass media.”

On the other hand, Media Rights Capital, a boutique production company that invests approx. $400 million each year in TV, movies and Internet content, will be using the Google Content Network as a business model where every time someone clicks on one of the “Calvacade” videos, advertisers will pay a fee, which will then be split between MacFarlane, Media Rights, Google and the site where the click was generated from.

Seems like a win-win for all parties involved. I have a feeling this will slightly shift the way in which original and innovative content distribution will be treated in the future. In the meantime, more business opportunities for everyone!

Come to think of it online video has become the new form of entertainment for many and now with concrete user-generated content initiatives such as Al Gore’s Current TV, they appeal more to the masses cause its basically attainable by anyone and everyone, moreover, it gives an opportunity to be a part of something.

In addition, what’s even better about this modality, which TV has never been able to offer, is being able to have on-the-spot interaction with people within your community, or other surfers and other networks in general. Its the beauty of online video; it can be virally spread, easily, by giving viewers the choice to diffuse, comment, share and spread the ‘brand’ to the internet universe. It’s an advantageous way to maximize your budget since you can reach vast audiences, at a relatively lost-cost.

I actually wanted to show you something I ran into while taking a stroll along cyberspace. What caught my attention was that this type of art, ‘street art’ has been known for ages. We’ve seen it represented in the form of graffiti just that this type of ‘art’ conveys a different message to that of just plain words sprayed painted on a wall. In fact, street art, as the name discloses, is indeed an art. And sometimes it can be overseen, but thanks to the innate social nature of the Internet, artists such as BLU, an Italian street animation artist, have been able to step out from behind the scenes and indulge us with creations such as these:

I just think its brilliant how the artist managed to bring his art to life by incorporating it with the online aspect of it. This individual’s work is no longer stagnantly sitting on a wall, instead, its out there, seen and enjoyed by everyone and shared amongst friends, which is exactly how I came across it.

What I’m trying to say is, nowadays you can exploit just about anything through online video advertising. From an individual basis to mass products to just about everything that exists today; it can all be massively and effortlessly diffused wherever, targeted to your exact audience, exact demographics…its all about becoming ‘digital’, and it will certainly continue to grow and evolve.