In August, we added captions and subtitles to YouTube videos to help uploaders reach a wider audience. While we've been working to offer captions in as many different languages as possible, there are often only a few translated versions available. To solve this problem, we added a new "auto translate" feature. Google Translate adds real-time machine translation to any caption tracks you upload. Now you can enjoy this video spoken in Italian,

Companies that want to market themselves both locally and globally may ask if they can do this simultaneously. The answer is yes, but there is an effective way to go about it. I would not try to do both on the same web page. National companies that do local geo-targeting do so as a campaign. They do not abandon their national, or global, marketing efforts, but rather integrate the local versions of them into their overall marketing plans. At least,

There are companies successfully running local PPC campaigns even though they are national or international companies running global search marketing campaigns effectively. How are they doing it? First, they are not mixing and matching global search and PPC marketing efforts with local marketing efforts. They are running separate campaigns.

by Vera H-C Chan Missouri, population 5.8 million . Indiana, population 6.3 million . Each will send 11 votes apiece to the Electoral College., and polls say constituents are in a virtual dead heat. The Buzz Log daily countown focuses upon what these Midwestern states want to know about John McCain (R) and Barack Obama (D).

...for a long, long while. Pretend Investors: I was recommending you dollar-cost-average your way into tech stocks, by buying GOOG and YHOO at bargain prices. Today is another sickening day on the markets, so what better time to get our buying over with and go back to sleep for another five years. I no longer feel strongly about following up with more YHOO, however. If you like gambling on takeover offers, then take a plunge here at $12.04,

I feel bad now for getting people all pumped for naught. I published a post Thursday night on Google's new SMS feature in Gmail chat, which allows users to send SMS messages from their desktop or laptop computers to contacts' cell phones. Now, the company shelved it for the time being to work out some enabling quirks. :( Google posted this blog on Halloween explaining the issue . Apparently,

Google took down their 2001 search engine now (see previous coverage ), but I've added an archive of the results for certain keywords ... like words taken from the Google Zeitgeist archives. [Hat tip to Tony and WebSonic.nl !] [By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Mirroring a Bit of Google Search 2001 | Comments ] [Advertisement] Find the right keywords for your campaigns at KeywordDiscovery.

The AOL mail blog published a sarcastic letter suggesting that Gmail copied various features from them . The premise of the post is that Gmail is "dressing up as AOL" for Halloween: <<Happy Halloween Gmail! We knew you would have the best costume at the party, and who can blame you? We think it's great that you're using this holiday to pay homage to the one who started it all, who got 35 million people online at once, gave them all email,

by Claudine Zap Do you enjoy Kristen Wiig 's whacky impressions on " Saturday Night Live ?" Are you a fan of the " The Daily Show 's" Aasif Mandvi's bitingly hysterical reports for the fake news show? Are you suffering from " Friends " withdrawal and need a new Lisa Kudrow fix? TV addicts, rejoice. These stars are available on all-new shows that are never coming to a TV near you. What do we want? TV shows! Online start-up, Strike.TV ,

The first public beta of WordPress 2.7 is here at last.  Join the thousands of people already testing 2.7 by downloading 2.7 Beta 1.  As previously mentioned on this blog, 2.7 is bringing a new visual design.  This design is almost completely implemented, but there are still a few areas that aren’t quite finished in Beta 1.  There are also several glitches in certain browsers.  Beta 1 provides the best experience in Firefox and Safari. Don’t worry, we are working on IE and Opera and will have those looking good in time for the final release.

Speaking of the final release, it will not be available on November 10th as originally scheduled.  We are two weeks behind schedule at the moment.  We need a little more time to finish the visual design, do a round of user testing against that finished design, and do a proper round of public beta testing. Our plan is to keep working as if Nov. 10 is still the release date.  However, instead of releasing the final 2.7 on the 10th, we will make a release candidate available instead.  The release candidate is intended to be a high-quality, almost-finished release that we are comfortable recommending for broad use.  After Nov. 10, the focus will be on fixing high impact bugs turned up by those of you testing the release candidate. I suspect 2.7 will be ready for final release by the end of November.  A specific date will be set as we progress through the public beta cycle and get a feel for how solid the release is.

Get WordPress 2.7 Beta 1.