Howcast

Howcast was launched just two years ago, a site filled with originally produced how-to videos on everything. Howcast uses videos from its own site and other channels such as YouTube and Hulu.

I especially like this video from the article:

http://www.howcast.com/videos/37713-How-To-Deal-With-a-Mean-Boss

Howcast is continually growing, from streaming 10 million videos a month last year to about 25 million videos a month today. I am amazed by the growth of this niche video site, and its ability to expand its audience in just a couple of years. Like many video sites, Howcast makes profit from selling ad space to increase its CPMs (Cost per thousand impressions). Furthermore, it has taken advantage of its business model for a instructional short-form how-to videos to earn additional revenue. The online community collaborates with independent film makers to produce instructional and entertainment videos for top brand names such as AT&T, Kodak, Twitter, Jetblue.. This idea not only helps leverage Howcast's brand name recognition by associating itself with these reputable names, but also helps with monetizing. Although video production and distribution for brand names for 10% of the videos Howcast produces, it takes up a majority of its sales. Currently, they are producing an average of 1,000 how-to videos a month. Looks like its concept is working! However it usually take a good five years for a business to mature, which means Howcast is still growing. I guess we'll see how well this model works out for Howcast in the next few years!