During the past decade, the massive worldwide conversion of learning content from print and other older media on to digital networks has created gatekeepers who limit access to their digital content or require online users to pay for it.
A variety of gatekeepers have made a third choice:
to open their content freely into the Internet.
These are their stories.
October 26 , 2006
One Man Fixes It All
How Stuff Works
Rensselaer Alumni Magazine illustration
June 2002
For several years now if you wanted to find out how something worked the best place to go online has been HowStuffWorks.com. There is no question about it: this website works because it is open content that explains how stuff works.
The strengths of this website are what—when you think about it—is the idea of education in the first place: knowledge. Yet the first thing that comes to mind when you click through its pages is not a school. There are no teachers and no tests. Just step-by-step explanations, like these basics about CDs:
You will often read about "pits" on a CD instead of bumps. They appear as pits on the aluminum side, but on the side the laser reads from, they are bumps. The incredibly small dimensions of the bumps make the spiral track on a CD extremely long. If you could lift the data track off a CD and stretch it out into a straight line, it would be 0.5 microns wide and almost 3.5 miles (5 km) long!
HowStuffWorks is for the most part the creation of one man. In June 2002 the Rensselaer Alumni Magazine ran a feature story on that man, Marshall Brain, Class of '83. The story included this explanation:
With about 3 million unique visitors each month, the Web site is the backbone of the company, which was founded two years ago. Brain says investors were drawn to the site because it initially attracted 100,000 visitors a month with zero dollars spent on advertising. In contrast, Brain says, there were online companies—now defunct—that “burned through $100 million in advertising just to get the same traffic as HowStuffWorks.”
Traffic ranking website Alexa's short description of this heavily used and much-liked open content knowledge site says: "HowStuffWorks.com is an award winning site covering thousands of topics within its own 10 channels: Auto, Computer, Electronics, Entertainment, Health, Home, Money, People, Science and Travel."
Alexa's average review is the highest possible: 5 gold stars.
The biggest lesson for open content for learning is that of the several million websites Alexa samples, HowStuffWorks ranks #1239 in October 2006. It is a lesson because it proves that it is possible for open content for learning to rank at the top of Internet popularity. Learning does not have to be the "also ran" in Internet use—it can be a leader. That fact is encouraging about the way learning is valued.
The potential popularity of open content websites is also an indication that they can become not only self-supporting but probably hugely profitable—an idea that prudence dictates be pursued in an era when education is perceived to be under funded.
HowStuffWorks solicits and posts advertising, as the boxes below illustrate. The primary "pitch" for advertising dollars is the the website wins awards for "editorial excellence." The website wins, the advertiser wins, and the visitor learns how a CD works. Learning is the biggest win of all.
In the box at the right is the "pitch" to potential advertisers that HowStuffWorks.com displays on its website. This pitch is the argument that having open content available drives traffic interested in that content to the website that makes it available.
Although there are schools of thought that oppose the display of advertising adjacent to educational resources, that does not diminish the obvious fact that advertising works as a way to pay for open content.
HowStuffWorks.com has been lathered with ads in recent years. The ads have not prevented the website from getting enormous traffic. The bottom line for this open content website is that advertising works.
Why Advertise on HowStuffWorks?
We're one of the most lauded and trusted brands on the Internet.
Winner of numerous awards for editorial excellence, our site is the top credible online destination for easy-to-understand explanations of how everything actually works, expert reviews and ratings. Our premise is simple: De-mystify the world and do it in a simple, clear-cut way that anybody can understand.
We have your audience.
As the content consumption options for consumers continues to expand, finding your target audience is harder than ever. But amidst all the turmoil, there's one thing that isn't hard to find: HSW's sophisticated users. At HSW you gain the opportunity to reach a targeted, loyal audience segmented by channel of interest:
* Auto
* Computer
* Electronics
* Entertainment
* Home
* Health
* Money
* People
* Science
In short, we cover it all. And we're attracting new eyes every day through dedicated online and offline efforts to ensure our brand remains fresh and invigorating for the consumer.