Real Estate Blog - Video Audio Indexing - Converting Your Voice and Audio To Text

Home : Blogs : Brad Andersohn ~ Community Manager : Active Brads Blog

Video Audio Indexing - Converting Your Voice and Audio To Text

For the past few years, we have had the ability to convert "Text To Speech" (TTS) on our computers. We can even select a male or female voice to read back text in a Word Document or on the computer screen. My son, a college student, uses the TTS "Speech synthesis" feature to have his computer read back stories and articles for homework assignments while he multi-tasks on other programs and applications. Well fasten your harnesses...

It was recently announced that Video can now be searched on Youtube.com using audio converted text. WOW! So what does this mean? What you say in your video will be converted, indexed, and now searched by viewers and consumers using keywords and phrases. This is a new and exciting time for the Video enthusiasts. Video and SEO? Until now, the only searchable part of any Video was the "Title", "The Description", and "limited" tags or keywords. No longer will this be the case.

See how Adobe Works to Make Video Search Indexing Easier, or how Adobe Makes Flash Content SEO-Friendly. "Adobe is providing optimized Adobe Flash Player technology to Google and Yahoo to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format and uncover information that is currently undiscoverable by search engines."

It's only a matter of time before ALL search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, and the others will incorporate this into their search options. See how Google Labs is working with Audio Indexing and testing this right now with "Search what the politicians are saying", I think you'll be surprised and impressed. It is predicted that video will be a $3 Billion Dollar Business by 2010. Video is what's hot and happening, otherwise these companies would not be investing this kind of time, money and research into its "Searchable" Future.

More Great Articles and Posts On Video:
Video Marketing & Video SEO Best Practices WhiteSheet
Video SEO: Tips for Clips that Capture Results

"RainMaker" Special - Signup Here and Get New Member Discount
RainCamp™ - "Because The Way We Do Business Online Has Changed!"

Posted by Brad Andersohn ~ Community Manager on 09/20/2008 01:37 PM

Comments (36)

Video in the Technology and Tools Channel

video, audio indexing, voice to text

Originally posted at: Real Estate 2.0 Technology : Video Audio Indexing - Converting Your Voice and Audio To Text

Post is included in group: Blogging & SEO
Post is included in group: Online Marketing Help Center
Post is included in group: Podcasting and Vidcasting
Post is included in group: Real Estate Technology
Post is included in group: The Art Of Marketing You

36 Comments on Video Audio Indexing - Converting Your Voice and Audio To Text

SEP

2008

That is so cool with audio converted to text, and then searchable. What will they think of next Brad? Thanks for the update.

Brad- Google said they were working on ways to index video other than the titles. This is very exciting news and the internet keeps growing! Nestor just surprised me with a recorder that I can attach to the computer and it will write down the words that I say. I have heard and seen this technology but just have not been convinced that it would work well. It is super frustrating in Nestor's car to use his audio recognition phone.

As always, very neat and interesting information! It is hard enough blogging, now video will become a must.

excellent now Flash developers can make more money :)

This is interesting news. Have to click out there and investigate it more. Alas- more to learn. :-)

Brad, WOW, this is fascinating. This certainly takes us to another level. Guess this means I got much to catch up. Thanks for staying on top, and keeping us posted.

Brad- my mother is sight impared and has used a program called JAWS for years that reads text and converts to audio. She has different voices to choose from as well. SEO and video-audio was bound to be the new techno....just not sure if I'm ready!!

Hi Brad! I've read about this coming and have meant to have the videography step under my belt BEFORE this came about! Now, I'm behind the 8-ball! Thanks for the great information--I'm off to check out some video cameras!

This is awesome news, which means our video home tours, may get SE recognition soon. Wonder how it will work with tags,etc. Amazing millenium we are living in

i am on the front end of ramping up video myself and am excited about how much ZIP it gets from people that dont know how simple it really is =0)

chris the implementer

Brad

Have you actually tried this feature?

Vidlisting has had search engine and fully human readable transcripts available for about a year now as part of our user upload process for videos hosted on our system. We wrote the feature with the intention of being about to auto generate transcripts. We put four months of testing into various speech-to-text engines. Granted that Google may have written or bought some technology not commercially available, but, in our case, about 50% of any text result for a typical video turned out to be garbage especially when background music is involved like you would have for a typical property video.

Correct me if I am wrong but my understanding is that Google IS NOT making a human readable transcript available like people are thinking that they are. They seem to be simply indexing whatever they can from the audio. In some ways, I'd rather the readable transcript for those that want to skim the text before watching or require text readers. It's also completely searchable by the search engines in that case.

Of course, if they are providing human readable and searchable transcripts on an automated basis for things that include background music then they have truly taken a giant step forward. I'm looking forward to seeing if this is the case.

Tony

Brad ... Do you HAVE to set the BAR higher every week ..............................

Brad-How does one keep up with everything. Definitely brainload. I can tell it is important info to researcg and learn about. Thank you for sharing another tool to add to our arsenal

Oh wow Brad!! Thats VERY exciting. I am just getting ready to start doing audio and look what else happens. I better catch up! :)

This is awesome. I can't believe this can be done. I never cease to be amazed at what will happen next.

That is pretty stinking cool!

SEP

2008

What a great News, I am looking forward to use it!

this IS big news! But how will you know which ones actually pertain to what you're looking for... like the google search results lets you quickly scan content bits.

Gary - whatever they think of next will blow us away I'm sure, this stuff does me already! lol~ Keeping up with it all is one thing, staying ahead of it is literally impossible. Thank God for RSS feeds, shared bookmarks, Twitter, search engines and word of mouth....and oh yeah, ActiveRain where you can find just about anything!! :-)

Katerina - does that mean your next Blog post will literally be "The Spoken Word?" lol~ :-)

Margaret - that's a good thing, if video makes it harder, then that makes Blogging easier right? Make it simple, fun, and valuable and it won't be hard at all. Blogging should not be painful or hard. It should be fun and effective. :-)

Lori - better get ready, it's not coming, it's here! :-) You're ready, because you are the ONLY ONE telling yourself that your not. Ponder that thought... Only you can convince YOU when you're ready.

We have been preparing video podcasts for 3 years and the results are amazing. For whatever reason the public enjoys watching videos more than pictures. I don't so it is a bit puzzling for me to understand. The Google ranking of our listings are unbelieveable. Pick any street we have a listing and merely Google the street and usually get 4-5 podcast sites in the top 10.

Thanks for the advice as we will further our video......without going overboard, which some have done. There is a point where video can be obnoxious to the viewer. Thus, use is a tool not as your main form of communication.

"Video is what's hot and happening" - this is very encouraging since I am still trying to complete my first video and post it somewhere - I still plan on calling you. I took my second video today and plan to work with it a bit and then take it to the next level - This post definitely motivates me to keep going!

SEP

2008

Tim - the results are amazing, you should do a post about it. The public likes a combination of video and pictures, text and audio, that pretty much covers every type of person there is. Glad it's working out well for you. Video is just another tool in the WEB 2.0 world to be used in the right place and at the right time. Wait till you see the video I'm uploading next... :-)

Cathy - you can call me anytime. :-)

SEP

2008

It's fascinating to me to watch the role of video unfold in the world of real estate. I spent time from 1992 until 2004 as a systems integrator selling turnkey digital video editing solutions (they didn't work all that swell in the early nineties.) Towards the end of the decade, we worked with some web 1.0 clients that were trying to monetize video on the internet. Now, the distribution continues to expand with google video, youtube, and many more video plays and the ever elusive content indexing is still being pursued in the world of web 2.0. With how easy and inexpensive it now is to produce high quality, high definition source materials that can be turned into stunning dvd's as well as encoded as flash video for the web, video delivery will continue to expand. I feel we do need to think "outside the box" when it comes to our presentation and not stick to the standard house tour with the schmaltzy voiceover. My .02. Aloha from Kauai...

Awesome move in the right direction. Thanks again Brad.

OCT

2008

Funny thing about technology and people, are we chasing it or is it chasing us? Something to think about for sure. The future is ours to see, and it's more than technology. I feel a song coming on... LOL~

Ronnie - you are on it. Based on your comment, you will do well in the WEB 2.0 video world. Outside the box is where I live and love most days. Thanks for the great comment, let me know if you ever need anything.

OCT

2008

Hi Brad;

This is great news hank you for sharing.........................................

OCT

2008

Brad....I've got to admit, this a great site for staying up on technological advance affecting the real estate industry. This is another one of those examples!!

OCT

2008

Anthony - most who read this post have no idea the power and the future in all this. You can tell by the minimal comments, but soon, this will end up just being one of those posts that was ahead of it's time. :-))

Sergio - I'm glad to hear you are enjoying the community and network. There are a ton of great authors and people here, you will meet some of the Best of the Best here! :-)

OCT

2008

Awesome info. I love video anyway and this makes it even more crucial!

OCT

2008

Eileen - I'm with ya on that one. I am surprised this post hasn't had more of an impact. Much less than I expected for something that is this exciting. Once all video can be searched by the audio words used, it will become the SEO tool of the decade. IMHO. :-)

This blog does not allow anonymous comments