Jack Herrick
Encyclopedia
Jack Herrick is an American entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 and wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...

 enthusiast. His entrepreneurial projects include wikiHow
WikiHow
wikiHow is a web-based and wiki-based community, consisting of an extensive database of how-to guides. wikiHow's mission is to build the world's largest and highest quality how-to manual. The site started as an extension of the already existing eHow website, and has evolved to host over 127,000...

, eHow
EHow
eHow is an online how-to guide with more than 1 million articles and 170,000 videos offering step-by-step instructions. eHow articles and videos are created by freelancers and cover a wide variety of topics organized into a hierarchy of categories. Any eHow user can leave comments or responses, but...

, Luminescent Technologies, and BigTray.

In January 2005, Mr. Herrick started wikiHow with the goal of creating "the how-to guide for everything" because "providing people with a practical education is one of the most empowering things you can offer a person." As of December 2009, wikiHow was read by 20 million visitors per month. At wikiHow, Herrick was noted for introducing opt-out advertising, co-developing the Universal Edit Button
Universal edit button
The Universal Edit Button is a green pencil icon in the address bar of a web browser that indicates whether a web page is editable. It is similar to the orange "broadcast" RSS icon that indicates that there is a web feed available. Clicking the icon opens the edit window...

, building a collaborative online environment, and combining business with social good.

Prior to starting wikiHow, Herrick ran eHow
EHow
eHow is an online how-to guide with more than 1 million articles and 170,000 videos offering step-by-step instructions. eHow articles and videos are created by freelancers and cover a wide variety of topics organized into a hierarchy of categories. Any eHow user can leave comments or responses, but...

, a popular how-to website now owned by Demand Media
Demand Media
Demand Media, Inc. is an online media company and content farm that operates online brands such as eHow, and Cracked, and is known for creating online content through its Demand Media Studios division based on a combination of measured consumer demand and predicted ROI...

. Herrick sold eHow after concluding the wiki method of content creation would ultimately produce higher quality work. He described the difference between eHow and wikiHow as "eating a McDonald's burger vs. a wonderful, home cooked meal"

Herrick is also on the Board of Directors for StatusNet, an open source microblogging company and the Board of Advisors for Mixer Labs, a startup acquired by Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

. Prior to focusing on building how-to manuals, Herrick was a co-founder of Luminescent Technologies, a computational semiconductor lithography company and BigTray an online marketplace for restaurant supplies. Herrick received a degree in history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 and a degree from Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

.
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