Watch & Learn: Studying the Sharing of Everyday Knowledge with Instructional Videos

The user generated content (UGC) phenomenon has gained popularity over the last few years as a result of new types of Web sites providing flexible functionality to people for sharing their profiles, pictures, videos and even their expertise and skills. This paper presents results of a study analyzing Web sites whose main purpose is to host and share everyday knowledge with instructional video through the Internet. The content analyzed covers a diverse area of practical knowledge: from relationships advice and beauty tips to how to bake traditional challah bread or repair a flat tire. We identified the most common topics for those videos, as well as the level of interest they raise among the audience, as well as why people use these videos. This study extends previous analyses on UGC´s motivations and purposes, focuses attention on the particularities of sharing everyday knowledge, as well as shedding light on new technical requirements for a future generation of instructional video sites.