Give the Gift of Squidoo

Here's a quick walkthrough of how this works:

1. Start here.

2. Choose what kind of lens you want to create as a gift. A traditional lens? A SquidPaws lens? A Holiday Gift Guide lens?

3. Based on what you pick, you will go straight in to the builder for that lens. It will feel like any old lens you are building, but stick with it, this is a GIFT lens! Give it a good URL, because your friend won't be able to change this part later.

4. When you land in the Workshop of this new lens, you will see that this is indeed a Gift. There will be a big pink button that says SEND GIFT in place of the regular Publish button.

5. Here's the meat and potatoes of lens gifting. This is where you bring your genius and creativity to the gift you're building. It's time to set up the lens as much as you can. You're a Giant, you know all the smart tricks and secrets, use those on this lens for your friend. Include photos if you can, write a great title, and set up the modules and settings. Give your friend a really strong headstart.

5.5 Even better, write little notes in the modules for your friend. Let them know what they should add there.

6. Click SEND GIFT when you're ready, and enter your friend's info.

7. You'll be able to see all your pending gifts and claimed gifts at the bottom of your Lenses list on the dashboard. Once your friend claims the lens we'll send you an email, too, to let you know.

8. Your friend has 30 days to claim it! If your friend doesn't claim the lens within 30 days, we'll send you both a reminder note. If your friend still doesn't claim the gift, poof. The lens goes to the big farm in the sky for unwanted gifts.

Just a smattering of extra notes that I thought you might want to know.

* You can send 1 lens gift or 99 or 200 lens gifts. But please don't spam your friends.

* Lens gifting is not a glorified transfer tool. You can still transfer existing lenses to friends, if you want. Lens gifting requires that you create a new lens via the lens gifting start page. This project is about requesting a specific lens that you wish your friend would add her own perspective and unique content to. It is the gift of a (pretty big) headstart. It's the gift of flattery. How many people wish you would publish what you know?

* Once you've created the gift lens, it's up to you to get your friend to take it over and make it great!

* You'll get an email when your friend successfully unwraps and accepts the gift. (You'll also get points, and perhaps even a trophy!).

* If your friend doesn't accept the gift within 30 days, you will both get a reminder email. If he still doesn't accept the gift, it will go POOF and expire. The lens does not revert to you, it gets deleted.

Why, to your favorite people, of course!

Send a Lens Gift to someone you wish would publish about something really interesting.

For example, I'd love to have my dad write a lens about the old Ford Woody cars he restores. It's hard to just say: Hey dad, go make a page. But if I sent him a gift that is all titled and set up and even has a few pictures of him and his Woodies already on it... that's a lot easier for him to fill in the blanks and publish.

So, who do you want to gift a lens to?