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By 14 April 2008 | Categories: netsmart

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Are you the curious type? How many times have you asked yourself ‘How do they do that?'

For me, nearly everyday. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to find an answer to those annoying questions or problems that just won’t go away? The web is alive with how-to and step-by-step guides, but there is nothing quite like seeing something demonstrated live. In all the time I’ve written the NetSmart column, other than Wikipedia, I’ve never written on only one single site. However, with this month’s theme being Do-It-Yourself, there is a brilliant site which is rich with video content, and I think is the “daddy” of DIY/How-to sites. I’m a big fan of well-done content, and this site does its content extremely well. Its all done with videos, and you can find a video on how to do almost anything. The site has a most appropriate name, WonderHowTo.

Many of us have used YouTube quite a bit, but with YouTube you can find videos on almost any subject. The difference with WonderHowTo is that it is completely focused on How-to guides, but how-to do almost anything. These guys describe themselves as a community-fueled, search engine and directory for Free How-to Video. With an index of more than 100 000 videos, you’ll find a treasure trove of how-to videos and guides, covering everything from how to taste wine, to making a 3D dragon that follows you with its eyes to how to annoy a telemarketer. The content is ­incredibly diverse. At the top of the homepage there is a clip of the day, which is generally something hilarious, and then under that, three columns of Fresh videos, Gems and Hot video picks for you to check out.

A feature of the site that I really like is that most of the content is found by humans, and not a web crawler. Being a community-based site, if you sign up as a member you can upload your own how-to videos, or appropriate videos you might find on the net. The site’s strategy for continued growth is to empower their intellectually-curious community to find great, juicy, sharable how-to videos. This strategy gives a sort of guaranteed quality level of the videos you will find on the site, as each one will have been reviewed by a community member.

After you are through looking at the recommended picks, you can dig deeper using the category menu. There is also search engine which is quite intuitive and its pretty easy to find relevant content. That gives us our only link this month, for WonderHowTo:

  • WonderHowTo – www.wonderhowto.com
    There is so much here to see, pulled from literally every ­corner of the web, it is a delight. So if you have an enquiring mind, and enjoy checking out cool videos, visit this site. You’ll never have to ask “How do they do that?” again. Be warned though, this site is a total time sink and will likely suck up half your day. Have fun learning and doing.

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