A friend of mine has been working out in the states for a year or so on a new venture called ‘Howcast‘. Founded by veterans of Google and YouTube, Howcast provides users with professional quality how-to videos and offers filmmakers an opportunity to gain experience, exposure and income. So if you want to know how to chill a six pack in three minutes, how to set up a recording studio or how to do your own screenprinting then you should check it out!
The idea of Howcast isn’t exactly brand new as there are a few how-to sites out there already, but it’s been really well executed. I’ve been beta testing the site for the last month and everythings been very well thought through. My friend Martin has been working on the design and user experience of the site and I think he’s done a pretty good job. Just like YouTube you can create your own channel, upload video, customise it and allow people to subscribe. But the thing I’m most impressed with and argually the most important thing on the site is the video player itself. When you upload a video you are asked to add markers and captions for the various steps so that a user can get an overview of all the steps and can jump to them whilst watching the video. Where it gets more impressive is in fullscreen video mode. The steps appear on the right and highlight as the video plays. You can also zoom into the video and move it around if you need a bit more detail. The site is now live so and check it out!
Fullscreen flash video with time marked steps
This post is tagged google, how-to, howcast, howto, social, UGC, video, youtube
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