Actually, I've been an About.com guide, and its a bit overrated. The traffic, and the fact that the Mining Company has been acquired by the NYT makes it look very big, but most of the content goes directly from links to other sites within a frame. The articles and so-called expert guides are simply not as expert as they seem. Course this is a generalization, and there some good guides in there.
Palin Ningthoujam
· 1 year ago
plus 53 mn visitors a month :-)
Ron Towns
· 1 year ago
About.com offers the best content out of all of these sites. The problem is they present their material in a horrible design look. Its hard to differentiate titles from articles, etc. A couple visual design tweaks could really improve their services. Unbelievable look at this... www.readtheanswer.com/index.php?RTA=web2
Palin Ningthoujam
· 1 year ago
I agree Ron. About.com's splitting up an article into multiple pages can be a put off.
eric : Gardenfork.tv
· 1 year ago
May I politely suggest that #11 on your list of Essential sites for How-To and Tips be The Green House?
The Green House is the community site I built as the home of the two web video shows I produce, Gardenfork.tv and RealWorldGreen.com .
While its not the largest site - you all would call it a niche social network -the community on The Green House is pretty amazing. If your question about cooking, gardening, green issues, or other fun stuff isn't already answered, post a question and see what happens. Someone will answer, and then others will add to the answer, many times with pictures or videos.
Part of the appeal of niche sites like the Green House is that they are not overwhelming the viewer will all sorts of stuff. Many of the people who come to the site prefer it to the larger all-in-one sites, its not trying to be the end-all in how-to.
[ If you've ever watched Gardenfork you'll agree its the 'imperfect how-to' ]
These larger sites are a bit like wandering into Bed Bath and Beyond when all you really want is a potato masher. Niche sites like The Green House are the potato mashers of the social web.
It seems like the obvious one since it aggregates how to videos from all the video sites listed... and thousands more...
Palin Ningthoujam
· 1 year ago
We were looking at the top 10, jeff, partly based on readership.
carlo
· 1 year ago
very useful site!
Winston Jonshon
· 1 year ago
Thanks for the introduction to a few sites I didn't know about.
However, I agree with the other people's comments that about.com probably shouldn't be on this list. It's one of the sites that I avoid when scanning a list of Google results, because it usually only has about 2-to-5% "content" on a page and the rest is junk and advertising.
Abouter
· 1 year ago
Thank you for your comments, though I need to correct your misstatement about our content.
About.com is one of the Web’s largest producers of original content, with over two million articles, videos, tutorials, podcasts and more. In fact, we add over 6,000 new articles every week.
But more importantly, our Guides (the 700 + experts who write for us) are passionate about providing the best information available to our millions of users. Sometimes that information takes the form of an original piece of content that we produce ourselves. But sometimes the best content on a subject is found elsewhere, and in such cases a Guide may chose to link to it. Whichever provides the greatest value to our users.
Also, I encourage you to look at the site today, as we've just launched a complete site redesign that addresses many of the criticisms posted above. The new look is cleaner and should provide a great user experience. I hope you enjoy it.
x00x
· 1 year ago
About.com is a site I studiously avoid at all costs.
About.com is a strange, hugely annoying entity all its own, unique in the entire vast expansive realm that is the internet, one characterized by a bizarre, convoluted sense of entitlement regarding whatever links, sites it recommends by virtue of its very own proprietary url, each link prefixed with about.com+ for every link you visit, even bookmark, forever forcing you to be beholden to them for having guided you to that special one-of-a-kind site, the suggestion of which they seem to feel you can never really repay them for.
To prove my point there are several greasemonkey scripts that edit out about.com from google search results.
Palin Ningthoujam
· 1 year ago
Is there a script that removes all the ads from About.com and shows its articles in one single page? :-)
x00x
· 1 year ago
For the best resource on grease monkey scripts definitely check out http://www.userscripts.org with literally thousands of available scripts.
I keep the list handy by installing the Firefox extension "Add to Search Bar" that makes any pages' search functionality available in the Search Bar (or "search box")... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ 3682
Lifehacker is good blog, Robert, but we were looking at sites whose content are driven by the community.
Greg Thomas
· 1 year ago
You might want to add MonkeySee.com to your list, probably up near the top as the quality of their videos and experts seem to be significantly better than most. They also accept user submissions.
Alex
· 1 year ago
I just wanted to add Howcast - hands down it's the best how-to video site out there!
Mike
· 1 year ago
I see that it's already on this list, but one site that is now on my must-watch list is www.monkeysee.com. Tons of professional videos with actual experts, which separate it from the sites with actors purporting to be experts--who wants to take advice from that?
Rob
· 1 year ago
A great list of How-To websites Palin. Thank you from all of us at VideoJug for our inclusion :-)
Chris
· 1 year ago
Unfortunately you just mentioned English websites in your list. In Germany there are several similar howto websites, e.g. Expli.
All Comments
The Green House is the community site I built as the home of the two web video shows I produce, Gardenfork.tv and RealWorldGreen.com .
www.green-house.tv
While its not the largest site - you all would call it a niche social network -the community on The Green House is pretty amazing. If your question about cooking, gardening, green issues, or other fun stuff isn't already answered, post a question and see what happens. Someone will answer, and then others will add to the answer, many times with pictures or videos.
Part of the appeal of niche sites like the Green House is that they are not overwhelming the viewer will all sorts of stuff. Many of the people who come to the site prefer it to the larger all-in-one sites, its not trying to be the end-all in how-to.
[ If you've ever watched Gardenfork you'll agree its the 'imperfect how-to' ]
These larger sites are a bit like wandering into Bed Bath and Beyond when all you really want is a potato masher. Niche sites like The Green House are the potato mashers of the social web.
And I love mashed potatoes.
http://howflow.com/
It seems like the obvious one since it aggregates how to videos from all the video sites listed... and thousands more...
However, I agree with the other people's comments that about.com probably shouldn't be on this list. It's one of the sites that I avoid when scanning a list of Google results, because it usually only has about 2-to-5% "content" on a page and the rest is junk and advertising.
About.com is one of the Web’s largest producers of original content, with over two million articles, videos, tutorials, podcasts and more. In fact, we add over 6,000 new articles every week.
But more importantly, our Guides (the 700 + experts who write for us) are passionate about providing the best information available to our millions of users. Sometimes that information takes the form of an original piece of content that we produce ourselves. But sometimes the best content on a subject is found elsewhere, and in such cases a Guide may chose to link to it. Whichever provides the greatest value to our users.
Also, I encourage you to look at the site today, as we've just launched a complete site redesign that addresses many of the criticisms posted above. The new look is cleaner and should provide a great user experience. I hope you enjoy it.
About.com is a strange, hugely annoying entity all its own, unique in the entire vast expansive realm that is the internet, one characterized by a bizarre, convoluted sense of entitlement regarding whatever links, sites it recommends by virtue of its very own proprietary url, each link prefixed with about.com+ for every link you visit, even bookmark, forever forcing you to be beholden to them for having guided you to that special one-of-a-kind site, the suggestion of which they seem to feel you can never really repay them for.
To prove my point there are several greasemonkey scripts that edit out about.com from google search results.
with literally thousands of available scripts.
I keep the list handy by installing the
Firefox extension "Add to Search Bar" that makes any pages' search functionality available in the Search Bar (or "search box")...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/
3682
Thank you from all of us at VideoJug for our inclusion :-)