Do As Squid Do: A Simple Guide to Using Squidoo.com

New to Squidoo?

Learn about Squidoo life and the lure of the lens as seen through the eyes of the community. Discover what makes the Squidoo network buzz and how you can use Squidoo to promote awareness of group initiatives, personal projects, cool products and useful web sites.

If you're new to Squidoo this lens is designed to give you an entertaining and informative view of life in this vibrant and fast growing community. It's both an introduction to key Squidoo features and an exploration of the people, practices and range of content available.

If you're a Squidoo veteran like me this lens aims to give you a deeper understanding of where we've been and where we're going as lensmasters. You can use it to quickly scan community resources for news and important announcements.

The lens filling comes with a pinch of serendipity and a sprinkling of mixed metaphors for a touch of je ne sais quoi! The idea is to reveal and identify concepts associated with the Squidoo brand that shed some light on its evolving message, purpose and function. You'll find a selection of tools for digging deep into the Squidoo community and useful ways to share the cool stuff you discover.

If you want to introduce yourself and promote your own lenses, take a dip in the guest's pool at the bottom of the page. Remember to book your return ticket to follow community developments and contribute to this living lens.

Got a taste for Squidoo? Make a splash with your own lens now!

Lens Diving

The deeper you go the more you know

Little is known about the hidden depths of Squidoo largely because there are thousands of lenses created daily. Many lie seemingly dormant or undiscovered in the dark regions of Squidooville only to erupt into hotspots of activity. For one reason or another, some lenses just don't get the attention they deserve. This lens provides ways to find and promote them.

Unlike Wikipedia where many people collaborate on a single page for any specific topic, Squidoo can have many lenses all focusing on the same topic or something similar. Unlike Wikipedia Squidoo is opinion based and this freedom is more closely related to personal recommendations, coolhunting and tastemaking.

If you find a lens to be useful and trustworthy you can rate it up using the star system at the top of every page. You can also easily add it to your favorites, a lensroll or a social network using the tools on the sidebar. This attention vote plays an important part in the Squidoo ecosystem and can help to combat spam or other undesirable content.

As you descend deeper into this lens you'll discover more and more ways to explore the inhabitants and rich pickings that dwell in Squidoo's mysterious peaks and valleys. You'll also understand more clearly how each unique lensmaster and lens brings important benefits to the whole community.

As the community grows we'll see increasingly bold and colorful creations vie for attention much like life on a coral reef. Such diversity ensures bountiful harvests for the search engine bots that crawl the web for data. This information is then sorted and ranked for relevancy and presented to people searching the web.

Search engines like Google prefer lots of rich content and cultural diversity to chew on as it's an indication of authority on a subject. Lenses accommodate the idea of concentrated knowledge and know-how on any particular topic and this focus generally ranks well with search engines.

It's all about getting below the surface to discover and share what's most relevant on any given topic. Ensuring desirable knowledge can circulate freely. Information wants to be free!

Deep Blue Sea photo by Lars Lentz licensed under Creative Commons.

Exploring Squidoo

Squidoo is a vast network of lenses with tentacles that reach deep into the wider online community. There are many ways to explore this terrain depending on how you choose to look for information.

Lenses are placed into categories and tagged with up to 40 keyword phrases describing their content. These can be used to channel and map the contents of the network. You can browse these categorized topics and tagged labels by using Squidoo's navigational tools:

Or you can look for specific things using the main site search engine at the top of every page. How to pick your primary tags.

The community rating system brings lots of valuable flotsam and jetsam to the surface. The most popular lenses are highly visible and easy to spot. However for most other lenses, including new ones, you need to dive a bit deeper.

Here's a special tool you can use to find these hidden treasures:

Squidoogle: A Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) dedicated to indexing the Squidoo network. You can also easily add this search to your Google homepage, blog or website. Give it a try!

Mix & Mash

Lenses are web mashups built using a combination of media widgets known as "Modules". Chunks of information can be mixed and placed on the page in any order and imported automatically from sites outside of Squidoo.

There are modules for text, links, web feeds, search results, YouTube videos, e-commerce kiosks and more. New modules are continually being developed to help you create interesting web mashups and money making opportunities.

This open interchange of information is central to the Read/Write web and what has become known as Web 2.0. By embracing this notion Squidoo helps people to engage in philanthropy and new ways to generate income.

Here are some example lenses for learning about Web Mashups, Feeds and Widgets.

Mashups, Feeds & Widgets

Learn how you can use web feeds and widgets to deliver focused content for your lens visitors.

The Music Matrix: Your Daily Music Discovery Mashboard

Start your adventures in the digital music landscape with the latest Music 2.0 tools. Surf the social music scene and explore the best music discovery sites online. Share your favorite free music sites via the interactive widget lists. Lens URL: ht...

Widget Finder: A Guide to Gadgets for Desktops, Blogs, Mobiles & Social Spaces

Feed your Space - Build your Blog - Pump up your PC - Widgets are tools that make it easy for you to customize your web page, desktop or mobile phone with cool new features. These mini-applications allow you to accessorize...

Feed Pitstop: Syndication Tools & Services for Web Feed Management

A one-stop lens for Web feed discovery, management and promotion. Tune-in to the latest web-buzz, generate customized content channels, distribute your own media using the best RSS tools and services. A comprehensive RSS hub for daily news and tool u...

It's a Watery World

Lensmasters use content modules like this YouTube player to sculpt and structure the browsing experience. Sound and vision add deeper meaning and context to the lens.

RSS feeds and interactive modules generate a fluid and flexible environment of rich data streams. This type of dynamic and magnetic sculpting offers visitors powerful and compelling reasons to visit your lens.

Lensmasters filter information and point people to good stuff online. Being imaginative with your content can make your lens stand out from the crowd and add value to the wider community. Finding your niche market often involves being different and exploring forms of expression that are unique to you.

The Underwater Sculpture Gallery

The Underwater Sculpture Gallery http://www.underwatersculpture.com/ 　 The Artist Jason Taylor was born in 1974 to an English father and Guyanese mother. Educated in South East England, he graduated at Camberwell College of Art, London Institute with a B.A.Honours in Sculpture and Ceramics. He has exhibited sculptures in several public spaces, including Trafalgar Square, Regents Park, Waterloo and Camberwell. He is a fully qualified dive instructor with over 14 years of diving experience in a variety of countries worldwide. (via. http://www.digitaldj.jp/ )

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Reusable Media

With such an array of tools at your disposal it's possible to create rich media presentations for your lens topic.

When it comes to using videos, photos and even audio in your lenses the challenge is to find media that is safe and sustainable rather than illegal due to copyright infringement.

For example, lensmasters focusing on popular movies and music may be tempted to use photos, video and audio clips found on the web. Unfortunately much of this material is protected by strong copyright laws that restrict usage rights. The last thing your lens visitors want to see is a broken YouTube connection that says: "this video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by ...".

You can avoid copyright problems by using creative works that are pre-cleared for reuse, either because they are in the Public Domain or because the copyright holder has granted permission.

Copyleft style licenses, with some rights restricted, are an alternative to traditional copyright where all rights are reserved. They facilitate the spread of ideas in the digital realm by declaring in advance the range and rights of use granted by the creator.

Flexible licenses like Creative Commons allow you to reuse media providing you stick to the licensing terms and attribute the creator. You can also publish your own content under Creative Commons to let other people share your work. Here are some tools to help you find legal, pre-cleared media like music, images, text and videos that are safe to use in your lenses.

Search Engines

Open Music Search
Find free music, sound samples, open source software, people, and other copyleft media services.

Creative Commons Search
Provides multiple engines for searching main Open Media hubs with the option to filter searches by desired source, media type, and Creative Commons license. Use it to find free music, videos, images, and other media.

CC Pirate Pic courtesy of Artists: Karen Rustad + Nelson Pavlosky

Is it Safe?

Learn about free and legal media that is always safe to use on your lenses.

Free Sounds: Digital Audio Tools, Sound Sample Collections, Open Music Resources

A guide to free sound solutions for Digital Audio Editing, Music Creation, and Podcasting. Sharing free audio applications, free sound samples and loops, free music you can download, share, reuse and remix. Find: Copyleft, Creative Commons, Open Sou...

Creative Commons Video Showcase

Learn how Creative Commons licenses can help you avoid the problems current copyright laws create for the sharing of information. Quickly access useful CC resources, news and developments for your own media projects. To recieve occasional...

OpenSonics: Open Music Community News & Copyleft Media Resources

Focusing on news and developments within the Open Music community. Promoting awareness of freely available music, audio services, video and software.The latest community buzz and announcements are delivered via a mashup...

Podsafe Content: A Guide to Free & Legal Media for Podcasters

A guide to freely available audio and video content licensed specifically for use in podcast productions. Learn about the advantages of podsafe content, where to find it and how you can use it. The podsafe ethos fosters a sense of fair...

More about Web 2.0

These videos demonstrate the concepts behind Web 2.0

See Wikipedia - Web 2.0 for further info.

Share your knowledge. Make a difference.

Do As Squid Do: A Simple Guide to Using Squidoo.com

Rate this Lens

New to Squidoo?

Contents at a Glance

Contents at a Glance

Explore related pages

Lens Diving

The deeper you go the more you know

Exploring Squidoo

Mix & Mash

Mashups, Feeds & Widgets

It's a Watery World

The Underwater Sculpture Gallery

Reusable Media

Is it Safe?

More about Web 2.0

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Web 2.0 0 points

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The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version) 0 points

Voila: Just copy and paste this code into your own site. Have fun!

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Vote for your Favorite Squid Pix!

Squid art through the eyes of the community

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Voila: Just copy and paste this code into your own site. Have fun!

Oopsey! Please login to Squidoo in order to add this module to your lens.

Squidcasts

SquidooCool Blog

Squidoo Lens of the Day

The SquidBlog

Seth's Blog

Ideas from the Original Squid

Marketing Madness

Coolhunting

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Voila: Just copy and paste this code into your own site. Have fun!

Oopsey! Please login to Squidoo in order to add this module to your lens.

Gadgets to Go

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