We’re convinced the resurgence of the web will ride on the wave of community involvement and the exchange of ideas, the foundation upon which the World Wide Web was originally conceived by Tim Berners-Lee. Web 2.0 is the “Community Web”.
Involving the community in the “how to” field is not new. Heloise has been doing it in the housekeeping niche since 1959 (”Helpful Hints from Heloise” was originally known as the “Readers Exchange”, an old school wiki). Heloise would publish “hints” she received from her readers. She was, and still is, widely syndicated. Heloise was very popular with my grandmother, who would clip the “hints” and stuff them in her kitchen drawer for future reference.
Now comes EHow.com. It’s a great utilitarian site with a lofty goal–to be the definitive How-To manual on every subject.
With hundreds of thousands of pages, eHow staffers provide concise and practical advice to over four million visitors a month. It claims to be the world’s most widely read “How-To” manual. As the staffers share their knowledge with the world, they invite the world to do the same in the wikiHow. What is a wikiHow?
According the website:
wikiHow is a collaborative writing project to build the world’s largest how-to manual. While eHow already contains instructions on how to do thousands of things, by working together as a group the wikiHow community can build something bigger and better. Over time the community at wikiHow will build a huge how to manual providing accurate instructions on every topic imaginable.
wikiHow is a wiki, which is a website that anyone (including you) can help write or edit. If you want to share your instructions for how to make the perfect lasagna or how to build a go cart, wikiHow is the place to do it. You can also edit and improve upon the work of other authors to make sure that wikiHow remains accurate and helpful.
With a tagline that reads “Clear Instructions on How to Do (just about) Everything”, in time, with everyone’s help, they may be able to remove the words “just about”. The advice is free, just like Tim would want it. Go there and find out what you need to know.
And check out the wikis on “sell real estate“. Very interesting.
Web 2.0: Knowledge to the People by the People.
