How-to websites are popping up all over the Web offering DIY instruction to visual learners in the form of videos and photo tutorial presentations. Each offers a unique set of features and community experience to its members. Here’s a comparison of six of these services, please feel free to suggest others you know of in the comments!
SuTree
SuTree calls itself a “knowledge community”, and indeed it is; this Israel-based DIY service indexes short how-to video lessons, lectures, and tutorials from across the Web. Members of the SuTree community can link to, tag, and categorize lessons in the form of videos, Flash presentations, PowerPoint files, audio-only files, and more. Community users can provide content ratings, comment on lessons, and send lessons to friends. Fans of the website can add a SuTree search box widget to their website or blog. Whether you want to learn about Steps in Cloning a Gene, How to manage your inventory in Second Life, or How to Use Chopsticks, you are likely to find something worthwhile to learn about on SuTree. They claim to have the largest library of free how-to videos on the Web, and at over 10,000 lessons, this just might be true.
Instructables
Instructables launched in 2005 and was founded by a group of MIT Media Lab alums who formed a company called Squid Labs. This step-by-step instructional website provides a space for users to contribute detailed tutorials on hands-on projects ranging from how to build an electric racing car, to creating an invisible book shelf, to how to make a RFID pet food access control system. Instructables mainly consist of images uploaded and placed into step-by-step order by the author and accompanied by instructions, but may also contain video files from Google, Yahoo! and YouTube. Instructables creators can set the cost and difficulty levels of their projects, tag and categorize them, attach Creative Commons and other licenses to their work, and collaborate with others on their creations. Community members each have full user profiles, can rate the tutorials, email them to friends, make comments, create favorites, and private message each other. The Instructables community has over 3,000 forums, nearly 600 groups, and RSS feeds everywhere, including feeds to subscribe to users.
5min
Israel-based 5min is a place for people to watch and share DIY videos which are no longer than 5 minutes long. An interesting feature of the 5min website is their Smart Player which lets viewers watch vids in slow motion, zoom in and out, view the frame-by-frame, or storyboard view. Each member of 5min is assigned a “Studio” or user profile where their work is displayed, and can upload videos, tag, and categorize them, as well as create storyboards for their videos. Users can subscribe to others’ studios, rate videos, leave comments, create favorites, send tutorials to friends, or send messages to other members. The 5min community has RSS feeds througout for those who are interested in subscribing, and they also offer vid URLs and embed code to post your favorite lessons to a variety of social networks, blogs, or websites. 5min’s lessons vary from cooking advice with how to make pickled ginger, to business know-how with how to write a business plan.
VideoJug
This UK video website presents professionally produced how-to and ask-the-expert short films on topics ranging from how to tie a Windsor knot, to managing debt, to buying a home. VideoJug shares their expert advice through 26,000 videos in over 100 subjects and also lets members upload their own instructional videos and photo slideshow tutorials which they review. Videos are available for download to iPod, PSP, or cell phones, as well as viewable on the website and many are accompanied by printable transcripts or user tips. Community members can email video lessons to friends, favorite vids on the website or through major social bookmarking websites, place user ratings, make comments, suggest alternate titles for films, as well as grab embed code for posting to their own websites.
Sclipo
This Barcelona-based DIY video-sharing website sees members contributing tips on everything from how to solve a Rubik’s Cube to how to play the drums. Tutorial creators can tag and categorize their videos as well as map their location within a Google map. All users have a user profile page called an Academie and community members can message each other, subscribe to one another, rate video lessons, leave comments, favorite videos, send vids to friends, and leave monetary “tips” for other users who have indicated their Paypal addresses. Sclipo makes video URLs and embed code available for those who want to post video lessons to other websites. A unique feature of the website is the Sclip Live service which enables teachers to join and hold live instructional sessions with their students.
TeacherTube
An instructional video service geared toward teachers, TeacherTube launched in March 2007 and offers a community space for sharing educational videos. Run by a family of educators and set up much like the YouTube interface, TeacherTube provides channels, over 200 groups, playlist capabilities, friends, and detailed user profiles. These educational vids range in topic from the Emancipation Proclamation to the physics of golf. Lesson creators can tag and place their videos into appropriate category channels, as well as make them public or private, and attach support files such as documents and presentations. Community members can add videos to favorites, email to friends, add content ratings, leave user comments, and send messages to other members. TeacherTube offers RSS feeds to subscribe to members.
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