Learning how to turn a flashlight into a laser is not a top priority for most people. Yet Kip Kedersha’s step-by-step instructional video that teaches how to do just that has been seen online by more people (1.88 million) than live in Manhattan (about 1.6 million).

Mr. Kedersha’s online library of 94 videos includes tips on how to chill a Coke in two minutes, simulate a gunshot wound and start up a PC quickly.

Many of the clips have been played hundreds of thousands of times, turning Mr. Kedersha into the top earner on Metacafe, a video-sharing Web site that pays the makers of popular videos. In little more than a year, the site has written him checks totaling $102,000.

That puts Mr. Kedersha, a 50-year-old video producer from St. Petersburg, Fla., near the front of the latest online stampede: the rush to capitalize on the popularity of how-to videos on the Web.

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