HowCast.com has jumped on the ‘how to’ video scene offering a large variety of interesting, entertaining, educational, and sometimes plain ridiculous ‘how-to’ videos and guides.
We first got wind of HowCast back in early 2008 as it launched in beta.
It was relatively late onto the ‘How to’ video arena with a small number of established competitors already bobbing around. However, given it was founded by ex-Google employees bootstrapping with their own cash it looked very promising.
Nearly two years on has it delivered?
Traffic Stats
Comparing Howcast to its major competitors in the ‘how to’ video field it is the underdog, but its steady growth does show continued promise.
Howcast attempts to set itself apart from the crowd by focusing on generating more professionally produced videos than it’s competitors.
Competitor eHow, for example, pays video producers $20 a video and churns out a huge amount of video content each day. Howcast however, has a quality over quantity approach. This is likely to produce a more loyal user base in the long run for Howcast.
What HowCast Offers
HowCast in a lot of ways looks and feels like YouTube, with many similarities, but the focus of the videos on HowCast is specifically geared towards ‘how-to’ videos, making this site a very practical one, in addition to one that can be very entertaining.
Subjects run the gamut of topics very helpful (‘How to make hollandaise sauce’… Mmm, did you remember the asparagus?) to the completely inane (‘How to make a burning laser flashlight’?) The selection of videos offered on HowCast are numerous and very comprehensive.
Registration and Getting Started
HowCast offers a quick registration process that allows you to create a profile page, leave comments on videos and profile pages, as well as create/upload your own videos or guides. In addition, while registering you can sign up for the how-to tip of the day email.
The profile page allows you to display links to your videos, subscriptions, and other interests (in many regards with the same look and feel as the profile page with YouTube.)
Navigating HowCast
The layout of HowCast is open, clean, and easy to navigate. The main page is jam-packed with large image previews of various videos on a wide range of subjects. When you select a video image, you route to a full page to view both the film and any ‘how to’ steps that have been provided specific to the video.
When watching films, again, there’s more of the YouTube feel to the page layout, with the video to the left and on the right a profile of the video creator followed by a listing of related videos. Beneath the film is an area for posting comments.
Video Searching
One of my own interests is working with Photoshop, so I did a search for the ‘Photoshop’ keyword, and was impressed to see several thousand video results, many of them covering very helpful topics. HowCast offers a tremendous amount of practical information.
You can also refine your search for videos by selecting the ‘Categories’ option, that breaks down the videos into numerous categories such as arts, technology, sports, food, etc. Note that while most of the content appears appropriate for all ages, parental discretion is advised for some of the videos in the ‘sex/relationship’ category (videos not implicitly pornographic, but of an adult nature.)
Other Features of HowCast
On the main page of the site HowCast offers a profile of featured members, a list of new features and changes, and a streaming text of current member activity, so you can see what other people are up to (again, features similar to YouTube).
HowCast also offers a number of standard links to FAQs, guides to learning more about creating films and guides, as well as a blog covering various developments at HowCast. With an impressive volume of interesting content, HowCast makes for an excellent ‘how-to’ reference site for just about anything imaginable.
A Sampling of a Typical HowCast Video
Here are some other videos we’ve featured on our sister site, WebTVHub:
