howcast

How to find how-tos on the Web

The economy is in trouble and we're all cutting back on spending, unsure of what the future might hold. We're also starting to realize that maybe doing things ourselves instead of hiring outside help is a great idea.

But if you're someone like me, building a deck in the back yard or, heck, painting vaulted ceilings, just isn't something you're proficient at. But luckily for us, there are a slew of sites across the Web that provide articles and videos that can help us complete any project.

5min.com I like 5min because I can learn about almost anything in, well, 5 minutes or less.

5min features videos from users who are experts on a particular subject. Sometimes, their expertise is buying an electric shaver. Other times, it's installing weatherstripping. Either way, you can find anything from the simple to the complex on 5min.

Although the videos are great, my favorite feature on 5min is the company's video player. Unlike some players that only let you play, stop, rewind, and fast-forward a clip, 5min's video player lets you zoom in, proceed frame-by-frame, and run the video in slow motion so you don't miss any steps. That feature comes in especially handy when you watch a video on a complex topic and the expert is moving too fast in their instruction.

eHow

eHow is a fantastic how-to site that includes both videos and articles. And although there aren't nearly as many videos on the site as other services like 5min, eHow still provides a fine alternative for learning how to get things done.

eHow enlists the help of professionals to create the more than 300,000 articles on the site. From learning how to tie a tie, to how to caulk, the site has it all. That said, if you're looking for video, you're not going to find much on eHow--it's designed to provide step-by-step text instructions. Sometimes, especially when I need to figure out how to build something like a deck, that's ideal. But for simple topics like learning how to throw a baseball, a video works much better. In those cases, I tend to use sites like 5min or Expert Village instead.

You will be forced to sit through commercials on the company's videos, but that's not a big deal--they're only 15 seconds long and run before the clip. I should also note that the site's video player doesn't offer all the extras like those that you'll find with 5min, so you'll probably find yourself moving the slider back quite often to figure out how to do something.

But video isn't what eHow is all about. The site is ideal when you want to bring instructions with you wherever you need to complete a task. Unlike 5min or Expert Village, I don't need to sit in front of my computer to see how to sand wood flooring when I use eHow; I can print out the instructions and read them. And on complex projects, having that option is ideal.

Expert Village

Expert Village is a little different from a service like 5min, which allows users to upload videos to display their expertise. Expert Village employs experts who work in fields ranging from music to home improvement who research particular topics and create short videos--usually no longer than five minutes--detailing how to perform a particular task.

The value of Expert Village's use of experts is seen almost immediately. Sure, you can find a really informative video on 5min and it might provide the same quality as something on Expert Village, but generally, that's the exception, not the norm.

According to Expert Village's internal figures, the site features over 131,000 videos that have been viewed more than 292 million times. And given the wide range of topics those videos cover, Expert Village is an ideal source for help.

One especially nice offering that shouldn't be overlooked is Expert Village's series. Unlike 5min or even eHow, some Expert Village experts stay on one topic and create a series of videos to walk you through a process.

For instance, one expert is teaching Chinese etiquette.… Read more

Slacker, Howcast added to Sony Bravia Internet Link channel line-up

Sony's Bravia Internet Video Link (or "BIVL," as we call it around here) is getting two more content partners: Slacker and Howcast. Slacker is the online streaming music service (similar to Pandora and Last.FM), while Howcast is a help and how-to Web site. Both will be available for free on the Sony IPTV accessory, which streams digital audio and video to compatible Bravia TVs. They join free channels available from YouTube, Wired, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo, and CBS (CNET's parent company), among others content partners.

Unfortunately, we gave Bravia Internet Video Link low marks when we … Read more

Howcast brings its how-to videos to the iPhone

Howcast, the how-to video host and platform, on Friday released its iPhone application, bringing its entire catalog of short-form informational videos to the popular device.

Much like YouTube's iPhone application, the Howcast app lets users search for videos, find them in a small selection of featured clips, or pick them by popularity or publication date.

It's wonderfully entertaining--including the option to shake the phone (or iPod Touch) and go to a random clip, no matter what part of the application you're using.

Where the mobile experience falls short of its Web counterpart is in lacking an integrated … Read more

Startup Howcast attempting to make how-to videos suck less

Howcast is a great new how-to video service that launched back in early February. This morning I met with co-creator Sanjay Raman to talk about what they've been up to in those two months. The site already has a wonderful, and fast growing collection of videos that teach you how to do all manner of things in just a few minutes, and has some really great features just around the corner.

Part of the site's success is due to the novel approach to the somewhat tired medium of how-to videos. People can still throw up their 5-minute shaky cam footage of how to plug in speaker cables, or cut up onions the right way, but Howcast is doing something very different from the rest by building itself up as a platform for fledgling self-proclaimed experts or videographers who want to put together slick, professional looking videos that don't suck. It's also got some great video player technology that blows the competition away.

The crux of the service revolves around the directors program. Howcast provides reasonably credentialed enthusiasts with a zip file full of goodies to create how-to shorts that follow a certain format. Included are overlays, bumpers, templates for Apple's Final Cut Pro, and voiceovers. There's also a growing repository of over 100 tracks to use as background music. Directors get paid $50 a pop for the videos they create, and have the option for further revenue sharing if their clip gets over 40,000 views. Raman says no video has yet to reach that height yet, but that they'd be offering something similar to YouTube with the creators getting a fair percentage cut.

Going forward Raman alluded to moving away from Final Cut and giving people a way to create videos using alternate tools. My guess is that it's a Web based video editing tool the likes of JumpCut or EyeSpot. Such a feature would let people create content without the need to shell out a few thousand dollars on hardware and software. Raman said the feature was coming in the "near future."

The second component to Howcast is the video player, which has been designed like a DVD player with chapter markers to separate the steps. Users can skip back and forth between each steps, and read little tool tips that gives them a bird's-eye view of what they're about to see without actually having to watch it. Raman walked me through how content creators add and edit these markers in the video, and the process is dead simple. You can play around with it yourself with the video embedded in this post.

In addition to video content, Howcast has an integrated wiki. Right now there are more wiki posts than videos, but that's because they're far simpler to make. Every video starts out as a Wiki, and that the ones that go into production are fact-checked in house by a Howcast staff member and linked up to the video post. One big thing that differs from Quamut, which I checked out last week, is that these wiki guides are printer friendly, so you can take them with you when it's time for semi-complex tasks.