Last week, YouTube and Google Video “upped the ante,” so to speak, on their captioning technologies. YouTube and Google Video will now use automatic speech recognition (ASR) combined with YouTube’s existing caption technology to create automatic captions within videos. Automatic captions (a.k.a. auto caps) benefit several groups, including the deaf, the hearing impaired, non-English speakers, Web searchers and video posters.

The benefit for the hearing impaired and non-English speakers is fairly obvious — people who would not otherwise understand the content of an online video are now able to read the spoken content via auto caps. But what are the implications of auto caps for online video search? One benefit of auto caps is the ability for users to search for actual content within videos instead of relying solely on titles or short descriptions to generate relevant results. Another benefit is that captions allow users to search for and jump to specific parts of videos.

These new features will undoubtedly enhance the video-viewing experience online. Captions can also enhance the video creator’s experience. For instance, companies looking to generate buzz around a viral video campaign will benefit from users’ abilities to easily search and find videos via captioned content. This, of course, will only work if your video contains the spoken word, so a video featuring mimes or interpretive dance is probably not the best option.

Adding buzz words to the script of your commercial or video can help you attract consumers searching for your products (or complementary products). Need an example? I conducted a YouTube search for a mustard commercial, and, even though the title and description mentioned nothing about mustard, the following age-old classic appeared in the search results: Grey Poupon Original Commercial. (To turn on auto-caps, hover your mouse over the red arrow on the bottom right of the screen. Then, click on the “CC” icon.)

Online YouTube Video Caption

Note that not all videos on YouTube and Google enable this feature, but I’m sure video creators and viewers will soon wise up to the value of auto caps.