MindBites, a paid-content instructional video site that launched earlier this year, has introduced a mobile version that allows users to stream guides to their iPhones. Users that access the standard site from their iPhones will automatically be redirected to the mobile version.
MindBites differs from most of the other how-to sites because it requires viewers to pay to view a video (they can watch a one minute preview for free). Each video costs around $2.00 (less if users buy credits in bulk), and $1.00 of each credit spent goes to the video’s creator. The system is designed to increase content quality by providing a financial incentive for experts to create videos. This of course comes with a trade off – people are probably more likely to just head over to a free how-to site.
It’s nice to see how-to sites beginning to go mobile, especially since we often need them when we aren’t sitting in front of a computer. But the pay-per-view nature of MindBites will make the mobile site effectively useless for nonmembers – nobody is going to enter credit card information from their phones.
There are many other how-to sites on the web, including Howcast, 5min, and VideoJug, but few of them are mobile-friendly.
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