Lensmaster Bookmarklet

Social bookmarking is a web-based service to share Internet bookmarks. Social bookmarking sites are a popular way to store, classify, share and search links through the practice of folksonomy techniques (also known as "user generated taxonomy": the practice and science of classification) on the Internet.

The concept of shared online bookmarks dates back to April 1996 with the launch of itList.com. Within the next three years online bookmark services became competitive, with venture-backed companies like Backflip, Blink, Clip2, Hotlinks, Quiver, and others entering the market. Lacking viable models for making money, most of this early generation of social bookmarking companies failed as the dot-com bubble burst.

Social bookmarking has more recently inspired the more successful social news movement which includes sites like del.icio.us, reddit and Digg

This system has several advantages over traditional automated resource location and classification software, such as search engine spiders. All tag-based classification of Internet resources (such as web sites) is done by human beings, who understand the content of the resource, as opposed to software which algorithmically attempts to determine the meaning of a resource. This provides for semantically classified tags, which are hard to find with contemporary search engines.

Additionally, as people bookmark resources that they find useful, resources that are of more use are bookmarked by more users. Thus, such a system will "rank" a resource based on its perceived utility. This is arguably a more useful metric for end users than other systems which rank resources based on the number of external links pointing to it.

Source

What is it?

The LensMaster Bookmarklet is a system whereby a Webmaster makes it easy for a Squidoo Lensmaster to add their site to one of their own lenses.

How does it work?

Read on...

You need your meta tags sorted out. For the site as a whole, and for each and every page that you hope to have bookmarked.

For each page you'll need the "Title" and also the "Description" complete and correct in your HTML meta-tags.

Don't be lazy with the description. Make an effort when adding it, because it will (in some cases) be automatically used by the person bookmarking the page.

You'll find it near the top of your page as...

<title>Insert the title of your site here</title>
<meta name="Description" content="Don't be lazy with the description. Make an effort when adding it.">

To add the Bookmarklet feature to your site...

1) Grab the image up in the top right hand corner... Right Click, Save As. You'll have to host it on your site.

2) You need to make add a hyperlink to that image once it's been inserted in your page. Eg: http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/bookmark?http://www.yourdomainname.com/filename.html

So when the Lensmaster clicks on the icon it will automatically open up in their Lensmaster Bookmarklet.

It's that simple.

For an example of how it looks in a site go to this page on howitworks.com and scroll down all the way to the bottom where it says "Share This Article". You'll find Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and plenty of others. And check out the last one, a very cute little Squidoo one.

Read "As a Lensmaster..." to see what happens on the other side.

It's a quick and easy way to add a link to your site.

First... Click on the link.

Next... The URL, Link Title and Description should already automatically fill in. If it isn't, then you can add your own description. It would be a shame if it isn't, it means the webmaster is letting a good opportunity go to waste. Indeed if it is already filled in then you can add a little of your own commentary anyway. Remember, search engines love unique content.

Then... you can choose between adding the bookmark to an existing Link List. Or if you don't have a Link List in your lens it can create a new Link List module.

If you choose "Continue" it will add the link and take you to your selected lens in Edit Mode (in which case you still need to Publish the lens). If you choose "Save and Publish" it will add the link and save and publish the lens.

Squidoo-to-go. Add to your lens while you browse the web.

Introducing The Squidoo Bookmarklet

With the Squidoo Bookmarklet in hand, you are only ever just one click away from adding great content to your lens. The Bookmarklet helps you add links to your lenses, fast. It's one of our most powerful tools for easy lensbuilding.

As Easy As 1,2,3

1. Just right-click on the underlined link below. You will see an option to "Bookmark this Link" or "Add to Favorites" or something similar. Select one of those options to save the Squidoo Bookmarklet to your browser as a Bookmark or Favorite.

2. Then, wherever you are on the web, whenever you land on a site you like, you can add the link to one of your lenses. Just pull down your saved bookmarks or favorites and click on the Squidoo Bookmarklet.

3. Presto! You'll be asked which lens you want to add that URL to, and specifically which link list module within that lens. All without redirecting you from the page you were on. This is mobility at its finest. Never spend time on a link list module again! (Follow on from the "Next" step in the previous module for what you do next).

You ready to do this? Go to this page to install The Squidoo Bookmarklet

(As a webmaster don't rely on a Squidoo Lensmaster to do this. Encourage them by having the clickable icon ready to go.)

Why not try the Squidoo Firefox Extension? It adds the Squidoo Bookmarklet to your toolbar, adds Squidoo to your searchbox, and gives you a direct link to your MyLenses page, for easy monitoring of your lenses at a glance.

Get the Squidoo Firefox Extension

Try it. Click on the icon...


You don't actually have to use the icon, you can say it in text, and make it into a hyperlink...

Bookmark this lens to one of your own lenses

Unfortunately we don't have control over the link title and link description for our lenses at Squidoo. So it's somewhat lacking in those departments. But here's one as a demonstration to show you how it works with a site that has got a title and description filled in...