Have you ever wished you could tackle the bathroom tiling without it looking like a bomb has hit it or even wanted the Sunday BBQ to not involve a visit to A&E? Have you ever had a look at the bill for your new kitchen and cursed yourself for not knowing how to fit it yourself?

With new research revealing a whopping 84% of women know nothing about motoring and a shocking 71% of men haven’t got a clue about the world of fashion you could be forgiven for thinking we are a nation of not-so-know-it-alls but with our TV bombarded with programs on everything from home improvement to surviving in the wild we have become a population of eager experts, believing we are far superior than our TV rivals.

The majority of men dismiss the skills of those celebrity mechanics, gardeners and DIY experts on TV, convinced they can beat them all at their own game. Almost a quarter of men think they know more about cars than Jeremy Clarkson and 14% believe their fingers are greener than those of Charlie Dimmock but the men are not alone as 40% of house-proud women consider themselves equal or even superior to cleaning gurus Kim and Aggie when it comes to keeping their homes spotless.

HowTo.tv is for all those who love watching TV experts teaching handy tips but then get frustrated because they cannot remember what the presenter said. The videos can be downloaded onto mobile devices so people can access information wherever they are.

Join HowTo.tv founder Russell Goldsmith live online on Monday 25th June at 19:00 to discuss how to access those vital home improvement tips and submit your own.

H: Julian Fisher, Host
R: Russell Goldsmith, Howto.tv

H: Hello and welcome to the Lifestyle Show, I’m Julian Fisher. Now today I’m going to be talking to a man behind a new website that promises to revolutionise the way we deal with everyday practical problems. Now maybe your mum’s gone away for the weekend and you fancy cooking a roast beef, but you haven’t got a clue how to do it. Maybe you don’t know how to fix that leaking tap in your bathroom. Maybe you just fancy changing your hairstyle but you just really haven’t got a clue how to do it. Well Russell Goldsmith who’s joining me here isn’t an expert, but he knows an awful lot of people who are and they’re the experts behind howto.tv

R: Absolutely, yes and we’ve got plenty of videos to show people how to do things, so yes if you need to find out what it is, you need to do, how to do, log onto the website, search, you’ll find it. If it’s not there let us know or if you know how to do something yourself and you can film it and prove you’re an expert, then upload it to the website and we’ll share that with everyone else as well

H: Ok, we’ll ask how all this came about in a moment, but I thought it would be good to start off with, by showing you a couple of clips from the website. Before we do, this is an interactive show, we want your questions to Russell solving your everyday problems, just click on the box below the screen you’re watching now, tell us who you are, where you’re from would be nice too. Ask us your questions and we’ll try and get through as many as we can in the next 15 minutes. But as I said let’s have a quick look at a little clip of highlights of videos that appear on the website

Footage

“…finish the floors, it’s easy to lay, hard wearing and low maintenance. So now I’m going to teach you how to lay a real wood floor. It’s a simple process if you know the basics and follow a few tips, which I’m going to teach you……..”

“…If you want to know how to make a difference and help the environment, here are a few simple tips DVO style. Ok we all get lots of carrier bags, stuff them into a cupboard and they get left there for ages. Why don’t you help the environment? Just get yourself a bag for life and don’t use so many carrier bags. It’s so simple. If you’re going shopping, instead of buying convenience foods, just buy things like loose fruit and veg, that way you use less packaging and you help the environment.”

“…You’re just about to set off for an enjoyable cycle ride when you notice that one of your tyres is flat. You inflate the tyre with your bike pump, but after a few minutes it’s flat again. Chances are you’ve got a puncture.”

“…Spring cleaning is something that most people undertake at one time or another. Here are some tips and shortcuts that will make the job less arduous. Tip one, small fingers are mucky fingers and whether it’s mud, jam or ….”

“…Absolutely lovely. Ok we know that air travel is not all about supping champagne and eating caviar, but this is our film, so do you know let us indulge ourselves just a wee bit. We’re in the departure lounge, we’re heading home for a family reunion and we need to get shopping……..Now knowing his family which I do, we are going to need a bucket load of champers which could potentially mean spending loads and loads of dosh. However, do the sensible thing, buying your champagne in the airport is a no brainer.”

“…We’re in the streets, in a sunny but slightly rainy London, on a mission to find somebody’s hair to do. Now it should be fairly easy I would have thought because to be honest there’s a fair few ropey heads of hair knocking about. Think I might have found someone, excuse me a minute. You don’t mind me accosting you in the street here? I think the key things really with hair like this is first of all, people always say to me – face shapes. Are face shapes important, and I would say not really. What’s more important is hair type. The type of hair that Alex has got is going to dictate what kind of hairstyles we can and can’t do…”

H: Well I don’t know about you I personally don’t think I’m going to get very far changing my hairstyle at my advanced years, but certainly there’s a whole range of topics that anybody who has got some kind of problem they want solving, there’s an answer for them – somebody, somewhere isn’t there?

R: Yes

H: How did the idea come about?

R: It was born out of frustration really of watching those reality TV shows, the makeover shows, gardening shows, which are all great and fantastic, but the issue was by the time you actually get round to doing the task that you’ve seen the celebrity showing you how to do it, you’ve either forgotten or have got it completely wrong. So what we tried to do is make it easily accessible for people to be able to either watch it online but more importantly download it, take it away with you, put it on your I-pod, your mobile phone and mobile device, so you’ve actually got it there while you’re actually doing that task, whether it’s tiling the bathroom, doing the gardening, you can actually watch it, pause it, rewind it and do it over and over again and hopefully it will help you

H: Because that was going to be one of my questions, as you say if you watch it on television you can’t remember two days later, but equally if you’ve got a dripping tap upstairs and the website’s on your PC downstairs, you’re going to be running up and downstairs with a wrench checking what I do next

R: Exactly, so the whole point is, I mean most people have a mobile phone or a mobile device like an I-Pod, a video I-Pod maybe, so yes absolutely, download it, put it onto that and then you’ve got it there with you whilst you’re doing that task

H: Well you’re going to show us a little clip on those handsets in a moment –

R: Yes I can do yes, absolutely

H: Well we’ve got a couple of questions in, this is an interactive show so keep those questions coming in, first one’s from James – says “it’s a great site. Can anyone submit their own clips?” Now you’re not looking to tell people what to do, you’re actually looking to recruit web stars of the future?

R: Yes indeed we actually did some research before we launched the site a couple of months ago that we actually believe that Britain does have a huge amount of experts out there, so what we’re encouraging people – I say Britain I mean obviously you know this is the web, it’s global, so anyone out there that feels they’re an expert, you know we’re actually encouraging them to film themselves doing whatever it is they believe they’re an expert in doing, so whether it’s the tiling or cooking a great recipe, you know if you’ve all got a favourite dish, or doing something in the gardening, or whatever it might be. If you can film yourself doing that, upload it via the website – there’s a – if you go to the homepage, there’s a link at the top of the navigation bar that says, “add my video”. So if you send that to us and we think that it’s good enough quality, you know meets our quality assurances and proves that you’re an expert, shows that you can do the task, we’ll put it up there and then you can share that knowledge

H: Because obviously there are sites out there that offer user-generated content, it’s poor quality and it’s poor taste sometimes, so clearly you’re going to vet this in some way?

R: Absolutely, everything is moderated so any video that we get comes to us in our gallery and we’ll obviously check it first and moderate, so nothing goes to the website before we’ve checked it. But also, what we’re trying to do, I think the fact that we’ve called it “TV” it’s howto.tv, there’s a certain quality that you expect by watching television effectively, so this is not your Candid Camera, your funny clips environment, this is very much experts showing you how to do things, whether or not that’s a celebrity expert or indeed consumers themselves

H: Well Shelley’s got a question – “does it have to be professional standard?” I suppose there’s a big difference between what we’d call BBC standard and sort of their mobile phone videos that people shoot – there’s a happy medium in between isn’t there?

R: Yes absolutely, and in fact some of the tips that we’ve already got on there but I’m sure are out there, you know are the kind of things that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find in a – you know from a professional manual. So for example we’ve got a show about how to spring clean, and there’s some great tips in there that you would never have dreamed of knowing, but we’ll show you –

H: Is that the one where you rub newspapers on windows or something?

R: Absolutely yes and various different tips about getting kids’ finger marks off your walls or getting those horrible marks off the bottom of your iron, something – things I suffer from all the time

H: Using Cola and mayonnaise to clean things

R: Yes, you’d be surprised! So I’d encourage people, if they want to learn those little tips, watch that particular one

H: Is this going back to – it’s almost bringing to life the televisual aid – old wives’ tales in many ways

R: Yes I mean that’s one –

H: Things your granny told you

R: Absolutely that’s one aspect of it, but I think what we’ve tried to do is get the right balance between, you’ve got those good experts on there so for example the DIY show that we’ve got that’s fronted by Martin Roberts for example, showing you how to lay a real wood floor, that is true professionals showing you how to do things but then absolutely if people can send in their videos with some interesting tips that you would never have thought of, I mean I had an example the other day where my key was stuck in my lock and we didn’t actually have a video at the time of showing us how to lubricate the lock so I could actually open my front door, phoned my dad and the one tip he gave me, you know 40 year old still phones his dad for any DIY tips as most sort of 40 year olds probably do – and the one tip he gave me was to take a pencil and snap the top of your pencil lead into your lock and then push the key in, because apparently graphite acts as a good lubricant for your lock. I would never have thought that, I’m now going to get my dad to make sure he films that little clip and we’ll have that up on the website showing people how to do it

H: And you’re looking for people to either film themselves or suggest stuff that you can go out and do – things are constantly changing on there –

R: Yes completely, I mean we’ve uploaded plenty of videos this week, we’ve got a hole lot more that we’re uploading next week, but if anyone, if you can’t find what it is you’re looking to – you know how to do on our website, drop us a note and we’ll add it into the production schedule and we’ll go out and film it for you

H: Ok, over halfway through the show, keep those questions coming in. Question in from John in London, “have any famous people been on howto.tv and could I become famous if I submit a film?”

R: Yes we had only a couple of weeks ago we had Denise Van Outen giving us some hints and tips on sort of how to get, you know be more environmentally friendly. So yes I mean we’ve got Denise there, Martin Roberts as I mentioned –

H: Colin and Justin doing everything you need to know about shopping

R: There’s a show that Colin, we went out and filmed at the various BAA Airports, so anything that you need to, sort of encouraging you to get there a little bit earlier and do some shopping, pick up some great bargains, so Colin and Justin show you how to get all the top bargains at the airports

H: I must admit, I’m a typical bloke, I don’t enjoy shopping but I did enjoy watching those videos because I thought actually those guys make shopping fun and if that – if you enjoy it then you’re absorbing information

R: That’s a classic example where, you know, when you’re going on holiday that thought of you know getting in the check-in queue and spending all that time there, so what they’re just saying is get there a bit early, check-in early and then you’ve got some fantastic bargains that you could pick up at the airport that you wouldn’t have necessarily thought to do that, so -

H: Now you were telling us earlier all about you know this isn’t about just sitting at your PC watching it, although you can do that – can you just show us how the content looks on this mobile phone, I mean I can think of an example, I’m driving in my car and I get a puncture

R: The classic example I’ve got here is – this is something, how to repair a bicycle puncture, now what we – I don’t know if you can get that on the picture, I’ll talk over this but one of the issues we were – in fact I’ll pause it while that’s playing

H: Ok

R: One of the things we were talking about was you know it’s very much about a time of need so the likelihood of you, if you’re out and about on your bike and you get a puncture, the likelihood that you’ve got a PC with you or have access to a computer at an internet café or whatever, but you know to be able to log onto the website, we’ve made it available as a WAP portal, so same address, www.howto.tv, and then be able to download in about 30, 40 seconds a 2 minute clip showing you how to repair that puncture

H: Sure

R: That’s the time of need you need it, and most people carry one of these around, so if you can access the web via your mobile phone and you can play videos, you can download those

H: Now this answers Simon’s question which is “can I store video clips on my equipment even if it’s not connected to the internet?” So I’m sure what – that’s what I would call a –

R: Yes, I haven’t got the speakers on here but this is the show that we produced on behalf of Wickes, with Martin Roberts fronting it showing you how to tile – and gain absolutely if you can download an MP4 file from the website and then you can put it on something like your video I-Pod as an example, and then you can take it away with you, so again if you’re doing the tiling and you’re in the bathroom, you’re not necessarily going to be next to your computer

H: But is this very technically complicated, do you need a howto video on how to use the howto site?

R: Well funnily enough when we did the research looking into what people wanted to learn how to do, one of the top – well the top – topic that people sort of struggled with was computing and mobile phones so it’s no surprise actually, we’ve got a show that we produced for Vodafone showing you how to work remotely from your office for example, it’s in our business channel, and that’s been our number 1 show for the last couple of weeks and the most popular show, so yes obviously ironically given this is a website and I’m hoping people can find it and download it, but yes maybe we should ourselves produce a little guides video tips on how to actually use things like your I-Pod

H: Sure. But it’s simple to use though

R: It is so simple –

H: I don’t need to have a degree to work it out?

R: No there’s a search bar at the top of the page where you can find what it is you’re looking how to do. Once you get the result you click on that, the video starts playing and there’s a button that says do you want to download it either to your I-Pod or your mobile phone. It couldn’t be simpler

H: Ok. We’ve got a question in from someone just calling themselves someone, so thank you for joining us someone! How often will new clips be uploaded?

R: We’re uploading constantly. So every single day hopefully we’ve got production. Just last week we uploaded a lot of self-test videos, things like testing for cholesterol, diabetes for example. We have just produced a series of parenting videos, how to change a nappy, how to bath a baby, little tips that I know I certainly could have done with a few years ago when we had our kids

H: Me too

R: But we’re also looking at producing new videos as well for things like finance, so whether or not it’s securing a loan or buying a property abroad, whatever that might be. But again you know we’re encouraging people to upload their own videos, so –

H: How many topics are you looking for?

R: Anything that people think they’re an expert in, showing someone how to do something, whether it’s as we mentioned DIY through to hair and make-up, beauty tips, gardening tips – anything you like, you know motoring, whatever it might be, if you think you’re an expert and you upload it, and that’s really where we see the site developing, so in answer to the question to someone, they’ll be constantly new videos, hopefully you know if people keep sending them in to us

H: So keep it short, keep it simple – keep it clean

R: Absolutely keep it clean, sounds like a line from the Producers – but – if anyone’s seen that film – but yes keep it – sort of 2, 3 minutes really. Because bearing in mind we’re actually encouraging people to download them –

H: Sure

R: To their mobile device, mobile phones, and so you know 2, 3 minutes we think really works, kind of gives an overview in showing you how to do something

H: In the same way that everything seems to come with an instruction manual and 48 languages, that thick and you take one look and go – if the video’s nice and short and sweet, people think ok I’ll take the time to watch this and absorb it

R: Absolutely yes and then there’s always, you know you can download the instructions if you do want to read more information on it; we’ve got printed instructions for people as well

H: Any particular favourites of yours or you’d really like to hear from people about – any areas you think you really –

R: No not really, I think it’s – I suppose some decent recipes, I think everyone’s got a good sort of like their favourite dish that they can cook or are quite proud of, so – you know good recipes and hints and tips. But anything really, any topic – you’ll be amazed what people are searching for, and it’ll – you might be doubly amazed about – you think you’re an expert in something and how many people would actually love to know, you know how to do that so yes whatever it is, send it up to us and you never know we might even make a star or you

H: Excellent, well if you want to be a web TV star and you’ve got something you want to share with the world, then you could either send the content to the site or you could just contact the site, that’s right and you’ll consider it for filming if people haven’t got the capability –

R: If they haven’t got the capabilities and they want to send us some information about it, absolutely if we can add it to the production schedule we’ll do that as well, but ideally if you can send it to yourself it’s very simple, there’s a link at the top of the page, you just follow the instructions, upload your video, and if it matches the quality assurances we’ll put it up there

H: Ok well dust off those movie cameras and turn yourself into a web TV star and help share a few of the nation’s problems at the same time – how good could that be? Well thank you very much indeed Russell –

R: Pleasure, thank you Julian

H: For joining us today and thank you for your questions and we look forward to seeing you again on the Lifestyle Show

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