YouTube announced earlier this week that it will start giving all videos on the site access to its auto-captioning technology. There are two benefits to this:

1. Deaf viewers will now be view and understand YouTube videos
2. Better search and advertising opportunities on the site.

YouTube has allowed video creators to add captions to YouTube since 2006 but transcribing was expensive and time consuming. Creators of videos and users can now request video transcription

So what does this mean?
Having searchable text has huge potential for search capabilities in YouTube.
This is a beta launch and will continue to develop over the next few months, but it means that it will be easier to search for auto-caption videos. As you may be aware, YouTube is owned by Google and this is a step in the direction of improving its search technology.

This new feature will also mean it is more accessible to speakers of different languages. English subtitles can be added into any of the 50 languages supported by Google’s translation service.

This is great news for those hearing impaired who were previously unable to take advantage of YouTube. Now they can watch all the YouTube videos without having to download any additonal software.

The other benefit of having auto-captioning is for advertisers. it will help brands serve ads relevant to specific parts of YouTube videos.

How will it work?
When you upload a video to YouTube, you will be able to create an automatic caption of the clip’s soundtrack. You will then be able to download the subtitles file to the personal computer in a SUB or SRT file format. If you have already uploaded a video, then you will be prompted to add captions for existing content.

Interesting to see how this feature develops. Read more information about YouTube on Mashable