When someone creates and new product, there is usually a manual to go along with it that includes step by step instructions on how to use that product. These manuals are usually very helpful for a new user. You would not be very happy to receive a new digital camera with no user’s manual to walk you through all of the advanced features. What would you do? You could consult the digital camera company, or you could search through pages and pages of information online. A helpful tool in this situation would be a how-to social media network. Among these is wikiHow – one of the largest and most popular how-to social media groups.
What is WikiHow?
WikiHow is both a wiki-based project and a database of how-to guides. It can also be considered a social media networking site. Since it is a wiki-based project, users are able to edit the how-to articles. If you, as a user, think that you have some information that would be helpful to another user, one of the best places for you to share your knowledge is on wikiHow. There are users who voluntarily contribute content from all around the globe. There are new articles every day that are created by different people who have a fresh perspective and might be able to solve a problem you are having. Since existing articles are constantly being edited by users, wrong information is fixed quickly.
A brief history of wikiHow:
The goal for wikiHow was to build the world’s largest how-to manual, which needs to be kept up-to-date, accurate and comprised of virtually every imaginable topic out there. wikiHow was founded by Jack Herrick on January 15, 2005. Travis Derouin did all of the engineering work on the site and Josh Hannah assisted by paying for the servers and other expenses.
Jack and Josh decided to purchase eHow when it was on the verge of bankruptcy. eHow already contained more than 17,000 how-to articles which were all professionally written and edited by experts. Jack’s first plan to hire professionals from all over the world to write more articles for the how-to manual did not really work. They got inspiration from Wikipedia, which is considered to be the largest encyclopedia on the web. Travis and Jack began modifying the open source MediaWiki software to be more suitable for a how-to manual.
Launching WikiHow:
WikiHow was finally open to the world on January 15, 2005. This date was selected by Josh and Jack because it was Wikipedia’s 4th birthday. By the end of January, 2,638 unique visitors came and read the meager selection of articles. Of those first 2,638 readers, nine people made more than ten edits. With the passage of time, wikiHow started gaining momentum and more visitors started showing their interest in the idea, then more volunteers from around the globe started editing and posting how-to articles for other readers.
“By April, over 100,000 readers were visiting WikiHow each month. By June, bloggers and the press were starting to write about the “how-to Wiki” Eventually, WikiHow appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ABC News, PBS Newshour, Singapore Straits Times, LeMonde, and other media.”[1]
In May 2006, Jack and Josh sold eHow and focused completely on wikiHow. Now wikiHow is a completely separate project eHow and running off totally different technology.
How wikiHow works:
Anyone can write and edit articles on wikiHow. To start, you need to create a free account and become a registered user. You can begin by making edits to an existing article, or you can jump right in and contribute a how-to of your own. Once your article is submitted, anyone with a wikiHow account can enhance, edit or update your post. Over time, your post will probably be improved and perfected. Any changes made by you or another user will be visible in recent changes or page history. Changes that are considered vandalism or inappropriate will be quickly removed.
WikiHow statistics:
WikiHow has experienced some impressive growth since their launch on January 15, 2005.
June 2008 Update:
“In June 2008, wikiHow had 11.4 million unique readers. These 11.4 million different people visited us a total of 14.7 million times in the month. While it isn’t a directly applicable comparison, it is interesting to note that the daily circulation of the New York Times is 1.2 million, the LA Times is 1 million, the Washington Post is 760,000 and the Boston Herald is 236,000.”[2]
Mission Statement:
WikiHow is a collaboration to build the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual. [2]
The idea behind wikiHow is to create the world’s largest database on how to do things. This goal turned out to be practically impossible without creating a wiki site that users can add to and edit. Go try out this fantastic open source community.
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