WikiHow: User Generated How-To Content

One example of wiki put to good use is WikiHow - a how-to resource comprised of submissions from volunteer writers on everything from relationships to plumbing repairs. As with most sites dependent on user-generated content, the quality and level of detail varies but most articles offer something of interest.

WikiHow Cake Faceoff
The "How to Make a Fire Breathing Dragon Cake" article offers step-by-step directions with photos and more -- even which frosting tip to use and a detailed diagram of how to cut the cake into dragonlike pieces.

Um, the "How to Make a Hamburger Cake" not so much - not a lot of explanation about to create the various components of the cake burger, Especially lacking on how to properly use the "frosting squeezer."

But with article headlines like "How to Read Body Language" and "Organize Your Comics Collection with Excel" it's hard to deny its appeal. WikiHow's traffic bears that out -- growing steadily with 5.5M unique visitors in June.

Wikis are not for everyone; they have a unique set of rules and culture which will clearly not fit every organization (See our post on Wiki Monitoring for more information on wikis).

Still the forces at work behind the growth of vertical wikis on topics like health care, music and education are worth noting. The partnering of organizations with their customers or the development of alliances between companies like Amazon and the developer community (See our post on Amazon's Mechanical Turk project) all point to a very different online environment than existed just five years ago.

WikiHow may not personify all the attributes of the wiki platform's capabilities but it does illustrate the continuing trend toward the individual as not merely a content consumer but a content creator as well.