The how to guide app Snapguide has made the leap to the iPad. Creating, sharing, and viewing how to guides on topics from crafts to cooking to tech just got a lot bigger…and cooler.
Snapguide got its start on the iPhone and was the first let you share things to Pinterest. I didn’t remember hearing about the app the first go round, but I’m glad I found it now (thanks to TechCrunch).
Here’s the gist and why it’s cool
Snapguide is one part discovering how to do things and one part sharing things you know how to do with others. The discovery part is pretty straightforward, search for topics or just explore. Sure, like all crowd sourced sites, quality ranges from “wow amazing” to “umm, okay”, but it’s putting stuff out there that I think is important.
The creating part (which I’m going to try out very shortly!) lets you combine still photos, videos, and text to show you how to do something. The better the images and text the more interesting the how to becomes. For example, I have a drawer full of wine corks that I’ve collected over the years—more than I need to make a wine cork noteboard— what to do with the rest? How about mini planters:
If you’re in a snacking mood, the “How to Make Scotch Eggs” how to is featured guide you’re seeing in all the screenshots:
Yeah, that looks like something I’m going to make one rainy afternoon this winter.
Why this is important
It isn’t just the leap to the iPad which is big here—iPhones are great at capturing and creating content, iPads are great at consuming it—like iBooks Author the ability to quickly and easily share knowledge is essential for the next wave of innovation. The movement towards a more pervasive knowledge economy makes it important that in order to participate in creating the works to share we need to democratize the creation process. High ideals? Lofty goals? Beyond the scope of Snapguide? Maybe. But we all have the duality of needing to learn things and capacity to teach others what we’ve learned. That’s what’s going on here. Leveling the playing field so that you don’t need a publishing house to crank out a book or pull together your favorite recipes or even tips for mastering Mail. You can do it all yourself.
Via: Snapguide Blog and TechCrunch iTunes: Snapguide
