“Easy distribution to YouTube,” was what our tech guys said many Enterprise customers wanted, so presto: our newest feature!  Now you can push a video file, and its translation file, directly from dotSUB to YouTube.  Enterprise customers will see ‘Publish’ on their list of video actions, and with one touch their videos can be seen by YouTube’s audiences. ”Broadcast Yourself,” indeed!

When Parents Meddle on Facebook, the Kids Run for ‘Dislike’ Button…

During a recent dinner, Daryl Smolens called her daughter Ali and asked her to tell the friend she was dining with “to have fun in Boston this weekend.”

“I turn to [him] and say, ‘I didn’t know you were going to Boston,’” recalled Ali. “My mom already knew because she had read it on Facebook, and here I am sitting next to him and I didn’t even know!”

The 25-year-old West Villager said it’s “100 percent” annoying when her mom knows more about what her friends are doing on Facebook than she does. And she’s not alone.

As Facebook’s popularity spikes among all generations, more parents are getting involved in their kids’ online lives — and it’s not always welcome.

dotSUB Founder's Family: Daryl & Ali Smolens

“Without fail, every time I sign on [to Facebook], my mom already has commented on one of my friends’ status — even before I’ve had a chance to see it for the first time,” said Ali.

“I’ve known [Ali’s friends] forever,” said Daryl, 63, of the Upper East Side. “They are always at our house hanging out … not always with Ali around.

“I did tell Ali I would stop commenting [on her friends’ status], but, you know, I’m a mother.”

Wendy Sachs, editor in chief of Care.com, a parenting website, said: “Some kids definitely have a church/state feeling when it comes to Facebook, and they want to keep their parents out. But parents want to stay connected to their kids, and Facebook offers an often unedited look into what’s really going on in their lives.”

Many parents with younger children insist on having access to their Facebook page to ward off cyberbullying or other inappropriate activity. In an October Care.com survey, one in three parents of children 12 to 17 years old said they feared their kids being cyberbullied more than kidnapping, suicide, car accidents or terrorism.

“Cyberbullying has terrified parents, so monitoring is becoming increasingly important,” said Sachs, who has a 9-year-old son. But even she knows the drawbacks to giving parents permission to view your Facebook page.

“As a child of divorced parents, an innocuous post of a piece I wrote followed by a humorous comment by my dad led to a bitter comment from my mother,” Sachs said. “I ended up deleting the post and almost de-friending my mom on Facebook.”

Mark LoCastro knows that Facebook feuds can mushroom into larger family feuds. The 28-year-old Lower East Side resident wanted some privacy, so he limited access to his profile. But when his dad’s girlfriend discovered that she was blocked, things went south.

“The following day, she was real upset and contacted my dad,” he said.

After a conflict, LoCastro restored her access.

“I guess blocking someone important on Facebook, like a family member, is like blocking them out of your life,” he said. “People sometimes take Facebook too seriously.”

***

Facebook jabs cause real pain

It was once fair enough to say, “It’s just Facebook. Don’t take it so seriously.”

But those days are over, said Manhattan psychologist Dr. Joseph Cilona.

“The impact of Facebook … has significantly changed the landscape of social relationships for many people,” Cilona said. “In my experience, the overwhelming impact has been negative.”

Cilona said that in the past two or three years, “a week has rarely gone by that I have not heard at least several mentions about Facebook in my work.” He’s seen families ripped apart and lovers scorned by words or actions on Facebook.

“It’s clear that more and more people are taking Facebook very seriously,” he said. “It can certainly have serious real-world consequences.”

***

Make rules to nip Facebook chaos in the bud

Kelli Krafsky and her husband, Jason — who dub themselves “The Social Media Couple” and co-authored the book “Facebook and Your Marriage” — have some rules for themselves and their two teenagers:

For kids

1. Watch what you say. No swearing, no threats and no innuendos. And watch who you talk about: Don’t complain about parents, put down siblings or air family spats.

2. Be responsible. Kids must be held accountable for anything posted from their own profile.

3. No secrets. Parents must be able to view all pictures, videos, posts, updates, tags … everything.

For parents

1. Don’t parent on Facebook. Any real-time issues, such as chores, homework or grades, should be dealt with face-to-face, not on Facebook.

2. Back off. There are websites devoted to embarrassing parental posts on Facebook. Don’t humiliate them.

3. Parents have the final say. If you say a friend needs to be blocked, a page “unliked” or a password changed, then so be it. Explain why.

“Health care should be easily accessible,” says Seth Young, Director of Web Services for Piedmont Healthcare. “So video captions for the hearing impaired is natural for us.” Seth continues, “Plus we want to be proactive about all the new government mandates for captioning.”

Piedmont Healthcare, a billion-dollar nonprofit based in Atlanta with 7,000 employees across Georgia, uses video with captions to get the word out on its websites as well as on YouTube.

“We just tag our videos and they’re done before we know it,” says Seth, referring to his use of dotSUB’s seamless integration with the Brightcove online video platform for captioning. “So easy, we don’t even think about it!”

Piedmont’s ‘Promise’ videos, are recovery stories; warm, reassuring, down-to-earth. They present a perfect balance between health and care to successfully drive traffic to the site. 

In fact, Piedmont Healthcare is increasing its commitment to video, and going a little Hollywood! A new HealthWatchMD video series / news blog will follow doctors around in dramatic CSI-like episodes featuring forensic science. A new educational website is also in the works that will feature dotSUB’s interactive transcripts beside the videos so viewers can read, search and click-thru to exactly the right video moment.

Viewership of company videos is also strong inside the company since the executive team provides quarterly updates in video too. For those that want the information in other media, Piedmont’s web team uses dotSUB’s transcripts to make up a nifty interview-style document for company wide distribution.

Gotta say, we love the new ways dotSUB customers come up with for using our technology!

dotSUB now offers a cool way of embedding your video’s transcription or translation text right into your site.

With our new transcript embed, you can tease the story of your video in text in various languages to attract different viewers to your video. They just click-thru to watch your video at the bottom of the transcript.

The same language auto-selection feature is part of the benefit too. When embedding just select ‘Auto Selection’ and the embed will match the user’s language to its browser if available. If you are looking to embed in only one language, we support that as well.

Here is a great example of the new embed with our Chairman Michael Smolens and new CEO David Orban discussing dotSUB’s future.

To Lead Innovative Expansion of the dotSUB Platform

March 16, 2011 – NEW YORK, NY – Michael L. Smolens, Founder and Chairman of dotSUB, announces the appointment of David Orban as Chief Executive Officer of dotSUB, the leading technology provider powering video viewing in multiple languages.

“David Orban brings a wealth of experience as CEO of international technology start-ups, software distributors and online communities, so he is the perfect person to manage dotSUB’s hyper-growth over the coming years,” says Smolens.

“David is in sync with my vision of removing language as a barrier to cross-cultural communications, as well as building dotSUB into a truly global business,” states Smolens. “I also plan to stay actively involved with our activities as Chairman.”

dotSUB powers online videos with translations in all languages across the Internet and mobile screens around the world. The company generates local connections to global businesses, educational institutions and public agencies such as Adobe, GE, TED, The Port Authority of NY / NJ, and the U.S. Army.

“I’m excited to lead a team building language bridges across cultures,” states Orban.

“Video usage is exploding,” Orban continues, “and dotSUB provides high quality, audience engagement and international reach. Seeing dotSUB’s crowd-sourcing platform empowering organizations like the TED conferences publishing more than 16,000 TED Talks with captions and subtitles in 88 languages—all with 6,000 volunteer translators—that’s inspiring!”

Video interview: Michael Smolens and new CEO David Orban discuss dotSUB’s future…

ABOUT dotSUB – dotSUB, www.dotsub.com, based in New York City, is the leading technology and services provider powering video viewing via captions and translations as subtitles in any language to increase access, engagement and global reach. dotSUB’s Enterprise Solutions are easy, fast and cost-effective. Clients include Adobe, Bank of America, Electronic Arts, GE, NHL Players Association, The Port Authority of NY/NJ, US Army, TED and WETA (PBS). See Release photos, logos & materials online.

PRESS CONTACT: Peter Crosby, (650) 533-3313, peter@dotsub.com

Just in from Japan, a lovely rescue story of 3 elders stranded by tsunami for 3 days…

Dominick Chen, a friend of our Founder’s from Tokyo, sent this short video in an hour ago saying, “I’ve just uploaded / transcribed / translated in Japanese, English and French, this video showing a positive ray of light at the disaster site.”

Please watch and add more translations on dotSUB to this sweet short story.

Love this part—after 42 hours stuck on the 2nd floor of a mostly destroyed building, one old man responds with a smile to a reporter’s question with this perspective:

[Reporter] What was your ordeal like?
[GrandPa] You know, I even came through the tsunamis from Chile [back in 1960], so I’m alright.
[GrandPa] Yeah, let’s just build it all over again!

To help our rescue, relief & recovery efforts, here some charities helping the people in Japan’s disaster areas:

Google Crises Center

Japanese Red Cross Society / Japan Earthquake donations

Global Giving Japan Earthquake And Tsunami Relief Fund

Nippon Foundation/CANPAN Northeastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund

Ganbatte, dai yo!

dotSUB Social Media Week panel: (L to R) Michael Smolens, G. Gooder, Klaus Steeg, Robin Kent & Paul Farkas.

As news from Egypt’s revolution streamed across the web, and several protester videos from Cairo appeared in dotSUB’s website for translation, Michael Smolens, Founder and Chairman of dotSUB was leading a panel discussion about how to reach global audiences with multi-lingual video for Social Media Week at the Paley Center for Media / NYC.

Smolens described how global Internet and online video usage are exploding, and led the panel in illustrating how translation and subtitling of video content can increase cross-cultural communications, educational benefits and engagement opportunities for all organizations. Lively discussion focused on how new technologies promote distribution of video that’s accessible to more people around the world.

“Opportunities opened up because of new technologies,” said Klaus Steeg, Managing Director / NYC of OSHO International, describing how community translations of their thousands of hours of single-language videos were turned into an innovative revenue stream via YouTube’s soon-to-be public pay-per-view rental store.

“Traffic Math,” is how Brightcove’s G. Gooder calibrates the growing business value based on the quantity, quality, distribution and devices on which users can discover online video today. Video examples from NHL Player’s Association, GE, U.S. Army and ICANN demonstrated his points and led to further discussion of monetization possibilities to pay for it all..

Robin Kent, Founder of The Fearless Group, discussed new advertising models and an ingenious initiative to bring music fans together with their favorite bands through lyrics subtitling and translations. A charming music video sample illustrated the possibilities.

SocialTV, the concept and the startup company, were described by Paul Farkas, Collaborator-in-Residence at Watchitoo.com, as largely about the conversation around movies, TV and online video. Interactive SocialTV can add shared viewing and storytelling as well as elements of co-creation including adding subtitles and translations.

Lots of Q&A continued the conversation, so the dotSUB team knows we’ll need to present more of these sessions about global online video at other venues soon!