Today, I was sent an e-mail from the founder of ProjectReadOn.com, Mateo Gutierrez. I was pleased to learn that a politician actually took the time to partner up with Mateo to provide closed captioning of web video for the deaf and hard of hearing internet users. Here's the press release that was issued.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007Press Release
TOMHARKIN.COM PARTNERS WITH PROJECTREADON.COM TO PROVIDE CLOSED CAPTIONING OF WEB VIDEO TO DISABLED
Harkin campaign becomes the first Senate campaign to use innovative service to provide disabled persons with access to online video.
Des Moines, IA – Senator Tom Harkin's campaign website launched a new service at www.tomharkin.com/closed-captioned-video to make the campaign's online video accessible to those with hearing disabilities through an innovative closed-captioning program provided by www.ProjectReadON.com.
A longtime champion for persons with disabilities, Senator Harkin authored the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 to protect the civil rights of more than 54 million Americans with physical and mental disabilities.
“The Internet has been instrumental in bringing our democracy closer to the people and it is our duty as Americans to ensure that that those with disabilities can have full use of the technology,” said Senator Harkin. “The recent CNN/YouTube debates illustrated the effectiveness of online video and I am proud to be partnering with Project readON to provide technology that helps to give Americans with disabilities an equal opportunity to engage in our democracy.”
Project readON is the web's leading and most innovative closed-captioning service that works toward a single goal of making online media content available to all by giving users the power to decide exactly what videos they want captioned and by giving webmasters an innovative and easy to use caption player to install on their websites.
“When Senator Harkin’s office contacted us I can honestly say that this was perhaps the highest point in our professional life of working in the closed captioning industry. To be sought out by the person that wrote the very act that spawned our industry is, to say the least, an honor. We look forward to contributing to online video captioning becoming the norm across the web, and it’s a great personal pleasure to be a part of Senator Harkin’s online video message as he takes the lead in that effort!” -- Mateo Gutierrez, co-founder of Project readON.
The campaign will continue to update and add additional closed-captioned videos to this innovative service. For more information regarding Project readON's innovative services and technology please visit, www.projectreadon.com or contact Mateo Gutierrez at mateo.gutierrez@projectreadon.com
I *STRONGLY* recommend all people to WATCH his "Tom Harkin - Tom on Disability Rights" video, (I think it is #3 in his video roll). He explained about ADA restoration and why he is pushing for it, and I thought it was an excellent summary of what is happening with the ADA and its impact on us.
ReplyDelete(If you cannot find it, the direct link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFNwG1UtZVs but IT DOES NOT INCLUDE caption-closed. I cannot get the link for that specific ProjectReadon-included video.)
Hey there,
ReplyDeleteHere's a direct link to the video on Tom Harkin's web site:
http://www.tomharkin.com/closed-captioned-video?id=1262&lang=en
Cheers,
John Erskine
Project readOn
Don't forget to take a gander at Al Franken's website. Al Franken is the Democratic candidate for the Senate seat in Minnesota. Every video on his website, as far as I can see, is captioned. If Al Franken can do it, why can't the DNC and every other candidate in every race for every office, do the same?
ReplyDelete