If you are a frequent user of videos within your content, particularly videos that you have created, then using YouTube to host them may make life a little easier.

There are three features that I think are worthy of discussion today. The first two involve the inclusion of captions – if you include them. In fact, when it comes to videos, captions may well be the growth area in 2009. YouTube provides a method of switching captions on when embedding the video. By adding the code “&cc_load_policy=1″ to the video’s embed code in a couple of places and it will turn on the feature. The user can control captions on/off through a button in the lower right hand corner.

Using captions means that users can view videos with sound turn off. The second feature is handled through Google’s translate service. As the name suggests, Google will translate the captions into the language selected by the user. There is a choice of 41 different languages. This is a real bonus for those whose readers/viewers come from all corners of the earth as they can now view your content whilst reading the captions in their own language.

The third feature of embedding video through YouTube is the ability to link to a specific moment in the video. This is particularly useful when referring to a video such as a ‘how to’ at a later date. Rather than referring a question to a video – you can refer them to the exact place on the video that answers that question. All it takes is the addition of a time reference at the end of the embedding code – “#t=11m19s” – for example, will start the video at 11 minutes and 19 seconds. In a society that wants instant answers, few will sit through 11 minutes of irrelevant information waiting for the answer. This will resolve the problem.

Videos are becoming far more user friendly now so you can expect to see them used more frequently for online marketing. Cheap video cameras can now produce a fairly decent picture with sound so the creation of videos is within everyone’s reach. With user friendly features such as captions, translations and video deep linking, the hardest part of any video production will be the captions themselves. I am sure there are quick fixes there as well. Time to drag out that video camera I think!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 8th, 2009 at 3:38 am and is filed under Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.