Digital Life: How-to online videos riding wave of profitability

Learning how to turn a flashlight into a laser is not a top priority for most people. Yet Kip Kedersha's step-by-step instructional video that teaches how to do so has been seen online by more people (1.88 million) than live in Manhattan (about 1.6 million).

Kedersha's online library of 94 videos includes tips on how to chill a Coke in two minutes, simulate a gunshot wound and start up a PC quickly.

Many of the clips have been played hundreds of thousands of times, turning Kedersha into the top earner on Metacafe (www.metacafe.com), a video-sharing website that pays the makers of popular videos. In little more than a year, the site has written him checks totaling $102,000.

That puts Kedersha, a 50-year-old video producer from St. Petersburg, Fla., near the front of the latest online stampede: the rush to capitalize on the popularity of how-to videos on the Web. "You never know when something like this is going to go away," Kedersha said. "I better ride the wave."

Some 25 years after "Jane Fonda's Workout" topped the home-video charts in the United States, Americans' fascination with instructional videos has shifted to the Internet, where a virtually unlimited amount of shelf space guarantees there is something for everyone.

Do-it-yourself tips, self-help, cooking and beauty advice, and sports and musical instruction are all available in a smorgasbord that offers the serious alongside the satirical, the humorous and the esoteric. Viewers can learn how to swaddle a baby, grow plants hydroponically or teach a cat to use the toilet.

"Almost everything we sell requires education and explanation and instruction," said Richard Revis, the co-owner of Black Jungle Terrarium Supply in Turners Falls, Mass., who is featured in more than 30 videos on how to feed, breed and care for poison dart frogs.

Most clips run a few minutes or less -- but not all. In a series of videos running a total of more than five hours, an Australian veteran of the Vietnam War demonstrates in minute detail how to build a replica of a Sherman tank at two-fifths its original scale.

Plenty of entrepreneurs and financiers are hoping the wave Kedersha has begun to ride is a long way from cresting. In the past two years, investors have put tens of millions of dollars into start-up companies with names like WonderHowTo.com, VideoJug (www.videojug.com), Howcast (www. howcast.com), Expert Village (www.expertvillage .com) and Graspr (www.graspr.com), which all are hoping to become the YouTube of how-to video clips. Of course, a good share of these videos are on YouTube itself (www.youtube.com). And traditional media companies such as Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Scripps Network are putting much of their own how-to content online.

Those start-ups have attracted former television executives and veterans of Internet giants such as Google, Yahoo and MySpace. Most of them readily admit that, as with many Internet fads, profits remain elusive for now.

Scores of independent video producers, experts and self-styled experts are, meanwhile, vying to make names for themselves in hopes of sharing in the expected profits. Plenty of others are making how-to clips just for fun or for a few minutes of Internet fame.

For Meghan Carter, 23, how-to videos offer the chance to turn her love of home decorating into a career. Early last year, she began driving around the country to conduct on-camera interviews with experts on subjects ranging from concrete countertops to green homes. Gradually, she grew more comfortable in front of the camera and began taking on the role of expert herself.

In April, she began posting her "girl next door meets Martha Stewart" videos on YouTube under the name Ask The Decorator (www. askthedecorator.com), and the clicks started coming. Her 87 tutorials include how to make a bow (81,000 views) and how to fold towels so they look just so (43,000 views).

"That one really surprised me," Carter said of the towel-folding video. "We were playing with new cameras and did it for fun. Out of nowhere, it skyrocketed in popularity."

She is following in the footsteps of her father, Tim Carter. His Ask The Builder franchise, which is more than a decade old, includes a nationally syndicated newspaper column, TV appearances and a website (www.askthebuilder.com). The younger Carter has a long way to go to catch up, but she is upbeat about her prospects.

"It's not a real income kind of money," she said of the ad revenue that YouTube shares with her. "But I have no doubt it is going to take off at some point. We hope that in three years we will have a critical mass of videos that will help us turn a substantial profit."