‘HowTo’s (HowTos, HowTo’s, or whatever you prefer to call them) are excellent problems solvers: they provide quick, easy-to-follow and non-overwhelming solutions to one or another problem that pop-up during daily routines. People love them, especially when they’re free, regardless whether it’s a step-by-step guide or a couple of minutes long video.
Good news, the amount of freely available, user-contributed HowTo’s out there is staggering. There is something for everyone: ranging from fun stuff i.e. how to make invisible book shelf, imitate gunshot wounds and even open up a Coke machine to more practical stuff i.e. how to negotiate a raise or tie a Tie. All categorized, commented and rated by users like you and me. Below you’ll find all ‘HowTo’ services we could find, as always all free, well-categorized and hopefully objectively ranked. Plus a bonus ‘HowTo’ search engine at the end. Enjoy!
*** HOWTO GUIDES ***
eHow (over 35.000 HowTo artciles)
WikiHow (over 20.000 articles)
Instructables (approx. 4.500 articles)
HowToDoThings (??? 2500 HowTo artciles)
Koonji (??? HowTo artciles )
*** VIDEO HOWTO GUIDES ***
VideoJug (approx. 2.500 video HowTo’s). Lets you downloaded videos directly to your iPod. More iPod Tools
ExpertVillage (approx. 28.000 videos, and growing by 4000 every month)
SuTree (approx. 5.500 videos)
Sclipo (approx. 1000 videos)
TrickLife (approx. 600 videos)
5min (approx. 500 videos)
ViewDo (approx. 350 videos)
HelpfulVideo (approx. 150 videos). Note: some videos require payment
YouTube (category ‘Howto & DIY’)
Metacafe (category ‘Video tips and Guides’)
*** TOPIC SPECIFIC ***
NewBaby [Parenting / Newborn / Breastfeeding / .... and everything related to babies]
TeacherTube [guides for education courses for Math, Literature and etc.]
Helpero [Computers / Networking / Mobile / Games / Internet]
Work [everything related to Entrepreneurs and Small-Business owners]
ShowMeDo [Computing / Internet / Python / java /Linux/ Ruby /Blender / Graphics / Screencasting]
Video-Tabs [Guitar] – over 200 video HowTo’s
Google Coop – ‘HowTo & DIY’ Search: Here is something worth a bookmark, to make things easier I created all-in-one ‘HowTo and DIY (Do It Yourself)’ search engine, using Google Co-op. This custom Google-powered search engine will search on all of the above mentioned ‘HowTo’ sites, simultaneously. Works great,… TESTed.
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great list !
enjoy
How about ScienceHack?
@ rami
Thanks for the tip, it makes an excellent addition to the list. I have never heard about it before, will definitely post about it in the upcoming ‘extra’ post
Hi, there. I work at howtodothings.com (thanks for the mention). We currently have about 2,500 articles. We actually re-launched the site this week to make it much easier for people to contribute their own expertise. In fact, we now split all of the ad revenue with the author 50-50. Nothing to retire on, but we figure it’s at least fair.
Thanks again!
@Erik
thanks for the info, I have added article count to the post.
Great sites man, especially Instructables and TrickLife.
@Mike
thanks for the insight… some more details regarding your choice would be awesome
Actually you can sell your video on helpfulvideo.com. The asking price is established by the uploader of the video clip. no registration no sign up to upload.
Pretty good list of howto websites. Another popular one is: about.com
You forgot about (rbgrn.net/blog) Robert Green’s DIY!
:)… Thanks for heads up.
Expert Village has over 28,000 vids now and is adding approximately 4,000 a month. I believe they expect to add 10,000 a month very soon.
They also have a program to pay “filmmakers” to produce videos. None of the content on the site is publicly submitted.
thanks for provide good information
@ Matt
Thanks for heads up, I will update the article right now.
A “How To” site is My CSS Tutorials
Seems like they recently launched but it looks pretty open source for commenting, requesting, and submitting your own tutorials.
Looks like a good CSS resource. Thanks for sharing.
We’re still pre-launch but are soon unveiling something novel in this space. Our belief is that if you could go back to the beginning time and put a camera in the room when any learning was taking place you would have a pool of content that was immensely valuable. I can’t say much more about what we’re doing yet but in essence it’s something along those lines.
In the meantime, we have a blog up with hundreds of free articles, podcasts and videos for language learning. You can check it out below:
http://blog.edufire.com
Don’t forget Monkeysee.com – widescreen player, shot in HD and features real experts. Launched one month ago. See what you think…
How to guides are also available at dailyhowto.co.uk although it mainly has computer articles, users are free to post articles of any nature. worth a look as there are many useful guides on there.
nice list,
I found another how to site called howto network take a look http://howto.22web.net/
My god, didnt realise there were so many. maybe I have wasted my $20 setting up a “How to Video” website at how2dothat.com. I created it with a tube hunter script and allows visitors to search and watch thousands of videos instantly.
Id love your opinions!
I am currently a member of instructable, really learn d-i-y cool stuff, i also learned them in here, thanks makeuse.of!
Thanks alot for the google tool (Custom Search Engine).
Great Info and thanks for the list, it will be of great use.
pretty good list can you also add askgetanswer.com
You might add eHelpfultips.com. Offers off beat how to topics such as “how to improve cell phone reception in metal framed buildings” and “how to recognize a brown recluse spider”.
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