1. Vincent Pineda
12/17/15
Social Media
1. Introduction
The internet is used for a vast majority of things, from killing time on
Stumbledupon to watching random videos of cats on YouTube. Luckily, there are also
positives to the advancements of technology, like wiki-How and e-How, people can take
learning to the next level. Everyday people can create a wiki-How on almost anything,
and people take full advantage of this. From topics between, “How to: Make a Burlap
Wreath” to “How to: Stay Awake Without Caffeine”, the randomness of the internet can
be found in all its glory in a positive way through the utilization of wiki-How.
2. History and Background
Jack Herrick and Travis Derounin, the founders of wikiHow came to fruition by
buying out the previous site, eHow. Jack had a vision to create a large, online database of
How-To’s. Basically Jack wanted to create the worlds’ largest “How-To” Manual that
can be transcribed into different languages that would someday help millions of people
around the world. When the previous owners of eHow began going bankrupt, Travis and
Jack jumped at the opportunity to begin their dream website. They had immense success
from the beginning, but Jack was frustrated with how things were working, they were
hiring professionals to write and edit their articles and it was not working out. The
professional writers were good at writing certain topics, but it wasn’t colloquial enough
for him. This is when he began to dive into research on Wikipedia and his interest was
2. sparked because of their community-based volunteer writers. This type of article writing
would help create the global “How-To Manual” that he and Travis envisioned, to be
written by everyday people and used by everyday people.
3. Need and Value
To join this wave of wiki-How users, ironically enough there is a “How to: Create a wiki-
How page”. The steps are simple and can be followed easily because of its listed out
process with pictures and occasional links. Wiki-How has grown into one of those sites
that people use on a daily basis. It isn’t a necessarily a necessity but it can be useful for
everyday application. Personally, there were several situations I was going through where
I needed to learn something quickly and I had nobody around to ask and I figured it out
by looking it up on wiki-How. I wasn’t consciously looking for wiki-How, but it was the
first result in my search, this shows the relevance and the importance of the site. It is used
popularly and by its listing (most of the time being first) shows that it is in high demand.
If wiki-How wasn’t around, I wouldn’t know how to tie a tie or shave my face, something
I now do almost every day.
4. Summary and Conclusion
For my own topic, I chose “vape tricks 101”. I work as a sponsor for a local
vape/electronic cigarette company as a promoter. The way it works with this certain
audience is you have to catch their attention first. So with the use of social media, my
team and I put together videos of me doing tricks with the vapor and I promote specific
flavor brands that are sold at the vape shop. After releasing the first couple of videos for
3. the shop, people began coming in asking how the tricks were being done. I would teach
them and they would come in the next time and show me their progress, constantly
asking me how newer and more advanced tricks were done. I gained a small following on
Instagram and soon fell into a community of people that did vape tricks, also known as
“trickers”. This background gave me the idea to do a wiki-How on vape tricks, only
because I am constantly asked questions about how I do the things. I plan on sharing my
wiki-How with my work and getting our professional photographer to help me design the
layout of future wiki-“How to: Do Vape Tricks”.
4. References
“Faqs About Wikis.” Complete Guide to Wikis: How To Set Up, Use & Benefit from
Wikis For Teachers, Business Professionals, Families & Friends (2009): 271-278. Small
Business Reference Center. Web. 17 Dec. 2015.
"How to Create Your WikiHow Account." WikiHow. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Dec. 2015.
In the Last Three Months of 2014. "How Apple Could Make a $53 Billion Profit This
Year." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 17 Dec. 2015.
