As some of you may heard in the Forums, we hosted our 2nd annual eHow Member Event in San Francisco in October. Our eHow Community live in various states and though we communicate almost daily via the internet, it was nice to talk in the same room for a change! Not only are our member events a wonderful way for our team to meet our Community members in person but a great opportunity to exchange information and gain valuable feedback from our Community. If we owned a jumbo jet or had Paris Hilton’s credit limit, we would have loved to have invited every single Community member but we hosted as many people as we could. We invited a mix of members who we felt would represent our Community as a whole. This “mixed bag of folks” included new and old members, single and married peeps, men and women, ducks and zebras. Just kidding on the last part. The common bond of these members were that they were all people who contribute to our Community’s sense of teaching and learning from each other. Every member was a project-doer and enjoyed sharing their experiences through their articles as well as I Did This projects. At the event we tested out some new features that are “in the works” and we also got a chance to test drive our eHow mobile phone application on the Google Android (available through T T-Mobile). As Rich and Julie always say on the Forums, “Community feedback is very important” and at this event we were able to have in depth round-table discussions about existing features on the site as well as features that are coming soon.
Last but not least, who doesn’t love good food? One of the highlights of the Event was getting to learn some new recipes from the professional trained chefs at Parties that Cook. So we rolled up our sleeves and this is what we dished up…
Thank you to everyone that was able to take time away from their friends, family and home to participate. We hope to meet more of you at future events! Check out more photos from our event on our eHow fan page on Facebook.
Here ye here ye we are seeking brave and creative souls that are willing to wield their pumpkin carving knives to fashion some ghoulish and devilish jack-o-lanterns. In celebration of Halloween, eHow is hosting an “I Did This” Pumpkin Carving Contest. For the additional details, please take a look at the Official Contest Rules in the Contest Section of the Forums.
If you would like to participate in the contest, simply check out some basic instructions on “How to Carve a Pumpkin,” and click on the I Did This button to the right. Your I Did This entry should include step by step photos of your pumpkin carving experience and any templates you used to craft your pumpkin. The grand prize winner will receive an iPod Nano. This contest endsNovember 7, 2009 at 11:59 PM (Pacific Standard Time), so please submit your I Did This before the deadline.
Pumpkin carving is a great group activity so gather your family, friends and children this weekend and carve ‘em up. If you need some inspiration, here are the pumpkins that our Community Manager, Julie and her husband carved at a Halloween bash last weekend.
Not quite PUMPED yet? Well here are some more pumpkins that our fellow Community Members jimdris, butterfli, kinghostile, and pianistic designed and carved at our eHow Member Event in San Francisco last week.
Last but not least, please be aware that this is not for the faint of heart as de-gutting a pumpkin is serious work!
Blog Action Day 2009, a day when blogs unite and choose to discuss and highlight an issue we face as a global community. The conversation changes from year to year, and in 2009 they organization has zeroed in on Global Climate Change.
eHow.com has 711 articles and videos on Climate Change as of this date. If you are searching for ideas for your post, please visit eHow.com’s library of content for tips on how you can help stop drastic climate change. The eHow Go-Green Topic page features videos, articles, guides and resources to help you find the information you are looking for in your quest to go green.
BlogActionDay.org efforts have helped to narrow the blogosphere’s dialogue on this critical topic to successfully drive awareness on a massive scale. So, the more people that help out, the louder the chatter becomes!
We have two new exciting updates to share with y’all this week…eHow Article Submission Guidelines and I Did This. Some of you may have seen Rich’s post on the Forums with our brand spankin’ NEW eHow Submission Guidelines. Our team has been working hard to lay out the crucial elements for quality content on the site. The new submission guidelines gives tips on everything from titling to image uploads and spam. If you haven’t already done so, check out the post on the Forums before you sit down to draft your next how-to article or I Did This. The site is growing and as you know from previous posts, more and more people are coming to eHow for quality information and how to complete their projects and tasks. It is essential that all of our contributors become familiar with the guidelines so we continue to provide quality how-to information to our readers.
In other news, some of you may have noticed, the featured I Did This on the homepage. This is a newer format to eHow and are available for all users to share how they completed a variety of tasks. This is another great way for people to share their experiences on how they’ve completed a particular project. Julie, read an eHow article on how to make her wedding invitations and shared her experiences in her I Did This. Rich also created an I Did This on designing a t-shirt. For some of you, DIYers out there, I Did This is a less restrictive format style than the traditional how-to article. If you would like to share your experiences on how you completed a project in more of a blog-y fashion, I Did This is perfect for you. We will be reviewing our library of how-to articles and putting them to the test and posting I Did This about our experiences in future blog posts so stay tuned!
We’ve all known that eHow is the go-to place for some pretty unique, informative and interesting content but it seems that some other folks have begun to notice. And by “some other folks,” we mean like the dudes over at The New York Times. eHow was covered in two different pieces on The New York Times in August. In “Tiny Talents,” journalist Virginia Heffernan was amazed at the unique party-trick type how-to information that you could find in how-to sites like eHow, ExpertVillage, and some other sites. Interestingly enough although the other how-to sites were mentioned in the article, nearly all of the examples in the article were eHow or ExpertVillage content (wink wink). Sure there is a bevy of serious topics like “How to Perform CPR” and “How to Thin Swiss Chard“ but if you feel like being the King or Queen of Awesome and want to learn “How to Make a SingaporeSling or “How to Survive a Zombie Attack,” look no further than eHow or ExpertVillage. Heffernan was also impressed with the level of quality in the user-generated video content. She says, “you’d think the shoestring budget would mean bad videos, but usually the reverse is true: (the content) is overseen directly by (people) with pet subjects and personal style.” Particularly on eHow much of our content is created by people who are passionate about their hobbies and the love for their particular craft or hobby helps us produce content with soul.
In “An Everywoman as Beauty Queen,” The New York Times covers the story of of self-made makeup artist, Lauren Luke and how she used social media sites to distribute their user generated content. Luke started selling makeup on eBay and shot pictures and video of herself trying out the products. She then began posting her DIY makeup videos on YouTube. Within months, she had more than 50 million views and 250,000 subscribers from around the world. Many people identified with the passion and soul that they saw in her content. Simply put, viewers knew that Luke wasn’t some model trying to sell makeup, she was an everyday woman showing how to use makeup. In her words she claims that people identify with her content because, “I’m an average-looking girl who can’t wear 10 layers of fake lashes to get that mascara effect.” YouTube, eHow and Vimeo have enabled Luke and other creators to distribute their content to a wide audience. The power of social media sites like YouTube and eHow is that we allow everyday people to create content and share it with other people trying to complete a real life project. Forget the glitz and glamour of TV personalities and models - people want their advice from people that have gone through finishing their projects with their own two hands.
Congratulations to the eHow Community for winning the 2009 New Media Award for the How-to category! The New Media Institute evaluated numerous websites to win awards in the following six categories: Insurance, How-to, and Non-Profit, as well as Health-Nutrition, Local Online News and Pharmaceutical. Unlike other web compentitions, websites were judged based on not only design, but how well they developed and utilized site features to serve and communicate with their audience. Barbara Eber-Schmid, Executive VP of the New Media Institute, announced this about the winners, “it is my pleasure to recognize these Websites. They range in size and focus and all have showed creativity in their use of new media as a form of communication.” In all honesty, judging from the numerous posts on the Forums and the large number of newly created eHow Groups, it’s not a surprise that our Community would win an award for best engagement and communication in the How-to field. Not only are our Forums posts increasing on a weekly basis, but many of our users are using the internal eHow messaging system to keep in touch with friends and making plans to meet up with one another while they vacation. We are very proud of our Community who have joined together not only to create quality How-to content but also utilize the social networking features of the site to come together to help with local and national causes like finding missing children like Lindsey Baum. eHow is not just a site where you go to write articles and make money. We are growing as Community that uses the power of social networking and technology to help each other solve real life problems and projects. eHow Community Rocks!
Our eHow community can be summed up in one word… SUPER! Yes, you are and we are glad to say we received plenty of great submissions for our July homepage contest. We were asking for more summer themed “Home and Garden” articles and you guys delivered! In our eyes, everyone is definitely a winner (it was quite diffiicult to pick out the exceptional ones, since there were a lot of good ones) , but of course with any contest, winners must be picked. So, without further ado, here are the 12 winners we selected for last month’s homepage contest.
eHow.com is not just another writing or video site. One of the greatest things about eHow are the members who come together and give our site soul. Recently many members of our eHow Community joined the cause to help find a missing child, Lindsey Baum. Some of you may have noticed that many of our eHow members have switched their avatars for a “searching for Lindsey Baum” avatar. However, the search efforts don’t stop there. We wouldn’t be eHow members if we didn’t do something less than spectacular. Some of our eHow members have created a free ebook, “A Missing Child is Everyone’s Child.” This ebook contains a collection of articles written by the eHow Community as well as their friends and family. The ebook, of course, will be dedicated to Lindsey Baum. The eHow Community plans on promoting the ebook and the search for Lindsey Baum on a national, local and virtual level. One of our members, Sharon Meirer has already been hard at work promoting the eHow Community’s ebook and the search for Lindsey on the KCEO radio. She called in to the show, The Great American Decision and spoke to radio personality, Andrew Warburton about the eHow Community’s quest to find Lindsey. If you have anything to contribute to this cause please join our eHow Community to spread the word or write an article!
Check this out… NBC Dallas featured eHow as one of their stories of the day. Our very own eHow member, Candace Crockett, did an interview with Lindsay Wilcox explaining how eHow.com is a cool place to showcase your knowledge and make money at the same time. We really do tell you “How To” make money from home.
You can see the official web posting of this news piece here:
It’s been awhile since we made a blog post and we apologize for that. The eHow team has been busy working up a storm trying to figure out cool ways to update the site, but we’ll reserve what we’ve been brainstorming for another post. In the meantime, we would like to make a post about one of the coolest things on eHow.com. What is it you say? Contests! It looks like we have been a little behind in terms of announcing contest winners and such, so we wanted to make one huge blog post about the past winners as well as the current opportunity we have.
Want to earn an easy $75? Here’s how…
So, we’re running one of our popular promotions this month. You guessed it… it’s the infamous homepage opportunity. eHow.com is giving away $75 to folks who get their articles featured on the homepage between the dates of 7/20 to 7/31. We want your summer-themed Home & Garden articles and if they get featured on the homepage, you’ll earn $75. For more information on this sweet deal, check out the link below:
We had a handful of winners in our past contests and we would like to take this time to announce them. These eHow members should be commended for putting in the time and effort in writing great articles that were acknowledged by our editorial staff. Congratulations to everyone who have been picked. Way to go!
Once again, congrats to the winners and we’re looking forward to seeing some awesome submissions for the month of July. Before ending this blog post, just wanted to make a quick mention that eHow.com’s video library of 160,000 how to videos contributed to total 1 Billion streams. Wow! Another great win for eHow.com and its community!
Thank you to everyone that was able to take time away from their friends, family and home to participate. We hope to meet more of you at future events! Check out more photos from our event on our eHow fan page on Facebook.
