User:Jpark044/TVLesson

TVLesson is a how-to website which offers instructional videos and articles on how to do just about anything. Lesson topics range from how to apply makeup to how to drive stick shift to comedic, ‘edutainment’ topics such as “How to Go Korean Clubbing” and “How to Have Public Bathroom Etiquette”. A user-generated site with over 135, 000 unique visitors and rising, TVLesson also partners with expert users and sites from all over the globe – including KTLA.com, ABC 7, LMG/Universal - to create professional how-to clips, interviews and short films.

History TVLesson is the brainchild of founder and CEO Jino Sung Im, a former SAT Prep Instructor and creator/founder of HigherKnowledge, a private SAT Prep Institution that had branches in the Philippines and China at one point. On his honeymoon in Hawaii in 2006, Im had a vision of an online community where various kinds of tutorials would be freely accessible to anyone with internet access. First registering the site as EducateToday.net, Im later changed the name to TVLesson to reflect the site’s mission to give the world access to all kinds of lessons. The official slogan became “TVLesson: The World is Learning”.

Im closed down his learning centers, and officially set up shop in his apartment in Pomona in 2007. The website officially launched in March of 2008 in an office building in Brea, CA. TVLesson eventually moved to a bigger office location, while remaining in the same city, to accommodate the growing employee count – which now includes photographer and published author Natasha Rhodes, Research and IT Department head Brad Park and filmmaker/director/producer Ken Woodall. Content

The user-generated site received 60, 000 page views in its first year, and now boasts over 70, 000 unique users nationwide, and over 135, 000 unique users worldwide. Additionally, TVLesson partners with professionals from all over the globe who contribute expert How-to videos to the site. Most recent contributers include KTLA news anchor Frank Buckley, and ABC weatherman Fritz Coleman. Professionals come from a wide range of areas/careers: makeup/cosmetology, sports and fitness/wellness, animal/pet care, family/parenting techniques, audition and acting/casting tips, business and money advice, etc.

Unique features of the website include a user-friendly uploading function so users can upload their own videos and articles, along with personal account and profile pages that can be personalized. The index page includes its own search engine so users can search lessons, or browse lessons by category by clicking the “Lessons” tab.

TVLesson’s in-house production team TVL Studios also regularly contributes high-quality content to the site in the form of videos and articles. In particular, TVL Studios’ partnership with LMG/Universal has created unique, edutainment videos which poke fun at culturally controversial topics. A recent viral video entitled “How to Go Korean Clubbing” is a parody of E! True Hollywood Stories reporting techniques and delves into the Korean dating practice of ‘booking.’

Infrastructure The two main departments, Research and Media, head up the website’s operations. Though both departments separately are responsible for written and visual content, respectively, both departments often collaborate when making videos or turning articles into videos/films. In addition, there are a host of producers who live and work elsewhere and contribute a great deal of content for the website by recruiting local professionals to participate in interviews, how-to instructional videos. Both departments started internship programs in 2009, programs which operate similarly to Howcast’s Emerging Filmmakers’ Program. Interns are recruited to contribute content to the website while gaining valuable experience and resume builders for their reels/credits.

In The Press Recently, a press release on the video “How to Go Korean Clubbing” generated much attention from local and international media, even garnering a front page report by Korea’s popular search engine www.daum.net.