Home » Squidoo Community » Modules

BigGirlBlue's Favorite Modules

Ranked #3,413 in Squidoo Community, #250,566 overall

Me Likes What I Likes

One of the best things about Squidoo and building lenses is being able to fill it with the modules of our choosing. What follows is a listing of my favorite modules and how I like to use them.

The first is obviously, the intro. It's a good opportunity to grab the reader with the image and a short introduction. A general guideline of two to three short paragraphs is all that are needed (this may change with the type of lens you are building).

This module also allows you to link to similar lenses in the discovery tool tab.

New Flickr Photos

Click on image for full size and photographer info

A image is worth a thousand words but sometimes they are just nice to look at. I love to include images in my lenses but especially ones of twitter.

Tips:
* pick ones that relate to your topic.
* choose a number that fit evenly across your lens. If one ends up on the next row by itself, delete it. Otherwise it looks cheesy and creates needless white space
* pick your own images
* search for images using the creative commons search (you'll find it under explore).
* delete nonsense titles like the one below
* encourage to click on image for larger size (see subtitle)

Dark clouds over little Venice by ** Maurice **
Masks of Venice #3 by Chiara Marra
Acqua Alta (High Water), Venice by Dimitry B
carlo scarpa, biennale sculpture space, venice 1952 by seier+seier
venice_bridge by word_virus
Venice grand channel by ** Maurice **
curated content from Flickr

New Blackbox

This is one of my absolute favorite modules for highlighting important dates and quotes. And now it comes in six other lovely colors. But I tend to stick with black.

New Text / Write module

This is probably the most vital module that can be used. This is the meat of the lens offering facts and opinions. The best part is that you don't have to write an essay to get your point across (and it's another opportunity to add photos).

Ten Things I Like About Dogs

  • They are loyal.

  • They have four legs.

  • They have wet kisses.

  • They make good companions.

  • You can name them after people.

  • They make good guard dogs.

  • They offers hours of entertainment.

  • They listen, mostly.

  • They always clean their plate.

  • They know how to have a good time with water.

New Video Module

The You Tube module was an awesome feature before but now the Video module offers a larger viewing screen and lets lensmaster use youtube, vimeo, rewer, howcast, myspace and a few more to show their favorite videos or even ones they create themselves.

Here's a cute video of a cat playing in a tub... full of water.
powered by Youtube

New Poll Module

This is a fabulous module to ask questions and get the short answer. You can visitors rate or offer their opinion on just about anything. But make sure it is related to lens topic.

Loading poll. Please Wait...

Amazon Spotlight

I prefer this module to the Amazon recommend because it lets me focus the readers attention on one item I think especially worthy of their time. I can write a mini review or quote from the description.
On Writing

On Writing

by: Stephen King

Amazon Price: $19.99 (as of 02/18/2012)Buy Now

This is one of my favorite writing books. Surprisingly, it was also my first Stephen King book. If I hadn't read it I probably wouldn't have gone on to read and enjoy other Stephen King novels. If you are thinking of novel writing as a career path I highly recommend reading this memoir.

Highlight Topic Images (landscape view works best). 

New StickyNote

Sticky notes are an unobtrusive way to mention a short note in a manner people are already familiar with. I have post-it's every where. :)

New Amazon Voting (Plexo)

I love interactive modules. This voting module allows people to vote on my favorite products or products relating to the topic of discussion. One of my pet peeves is finding one of these modules in a lens with products that don't jive with the topic and no intro as to why.

I don't let Amazon pick because they often end up choosing the same products. Like a hardcover and a soft cover of the same book. It takes a few extra minutes but the help feature saves time.

When no image is showing at Amazon (like the Avon lipstick below) images can be turned off so a clean text appears.

1

Vote Up
Vote Down
Avon ULTRA COLOR RICH Lipstick Berry, Berry Nice

Avon ULTRA COLOR RICH Lipstick Berry, Berry Nice

Shapes lips with the richest, creamiest color. Non-feathering more...0 points

2

Vote Up
Vote Down
Lipstick

Lipstick

In LIPSTICK, Chris McCormick (Margaux Hemingway), more...0 points

3

Vote Up
Vote Down
Cover Your Gray - Lipstick for the Hair - Dark Brown

Cover Your Gray - Lipstick for the Hair - Dark Brown

Touch up sticks let you go longer between hair col more...0 points

4

Vote Up
Vote Down
Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell

Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell

Great story about high powered friends trying to s more...0 points

New RSS: Add Your Own Feed

The RSS feed is an excellent opportunity to provide a brief description of articles from a site I favor or from my blog. A no fuss way for providing back links.
Loading Fetching RSS feed... please stand by

New Featured Lensmasters

This is actually the first time I have used this module but I have seen it on other lenses and have always thought it was cool. All I had to do was add the lensmasters profile name.

Here are a few of my favorite lensmasters:

New Featured Lenses

Featured lenses is a good opportunity to feature other lenses you have that are a similar topic.

Don't be afraid to feature other lensmaster lenses with similar topics. It helps round off your lens.

Here are five of my favorite Squidoo tips lenses:
Loading

New Quiz

This new module has quickly become one of my favorites. I've been looking for a program that is quick and easy to use on my website but apparently there is no such thing especially when compared to the simplicity of setting up this 10 question quiz. And it's pretty too.

Give your quizzes some thought. Work them out in a word processing document first with all the choices prepared before creating your quiz. One of the cool features of this module is it gives users the results of their quiz and it gives the lensmaster ongoing user results. I recommend using the full ten questions to give a complete quiz experience.

You can create a lens with a quiz as the focus or add a quiz to the bottom of your lens to test visitor on the previous information you have given them.

Reader Feedback

This is a good way to finish off almost any lens. But I don't think every single lens needs one. If there is absolutely no other interaction on the lens then it definitely helps to involve the reader.

Guestbook peeve: Lensmasters who leave a lovely comment and then tell me to visit such and such a lens that has absolutely nothing to do with my guestbook topic. If it's a cooking lens I don't want to hear about your mortgage lens. Take it on faith that if you leave a comment on someone's lens that the lensmaster will click on your name, pick a lens title that interests them and return the the comment.

So what are you waiting for? Sign my guestbook. If you have a favorite module lens then be sure to link to it in the comments.

submit
Show All

by

BigGirlBlue

I have been a member of Squidoo for almost two years. In that time I have made over 100 lenses. It stands to reason that I would develop some favorites.
I've... more »

Feeling creative? Create a Lens!

Explore related pages

Related Tags