Squidoo, now with Monsters

For brand new lensmasters, the system is structured to celebrate firsts early and often. Squidoo will have a rich newbie environment so that new users feel good about what they do in the site, and don't work alone in a vacuum that can all too often take a month or more to see any benefits (historically: money, which has a delay; or traffic, which certainly takes time to earn).

For experienced lensmasters, we've created a robust 'elder' architecture that celebrates milestone achievements, offers engaging editorial challenges just for higher levels, grants the power of altruism (to bless lower level Squids with extra points) and most important: unlocks new opportunities for you to get more attention to your lenses. We will constantly be adding new opportunities to this list.

All the new systems you see come together to support the 3 P's: Participation, Publication and Promotion. To support and encourage active lensmasters who produce well-written, authentic, content-rich lenses that readers interact with -- that remains the core of our company. And as such it is the most heavily rewarded part of our new experience points platform.

Of course, regular Squidoo is still regular Squidoo. You should continue to use the site as you always have: Publish lenses, edit lenses, comment, SquidLike, vote in polls, everything. All the bells and whistles (and monsters!) you will be seeing won't change the core experience one bit.

An Experience Points system
You earn points for doing good things in the site. You earn a few points for doing small things, lots of points for doing big things. Earn enough points and you Level Up. You don't always earn points for doing something, and you don't always earn the same amount of points that you received the last time you did the action. Find out why...

A Levels system
Levelling up is a helpful way to track your own progress through the site, since Levelling is basically an algorithm of doing good things, ranging from Participation to Publication to Promotion. When you gain enough experience points you Level Up, which unlocks new 'items 'for you. The best way to think about items that a user can unlock is this: They are opportunities. Opportunities to do something more in the site, opportunities to give someone something, opportunities to get and use something. At lower levels we will unlock tools and opportunities for learning something new on Squidoo and for making your own lenses better. At higher levels we will unlock promotion opportunities, quests, and more influence. Find out how you can Level Up

You can earn trophies
Our overall theme is Monsters. We call them SquidMonsters. SquidMonsters need love and attention. You can only get them for doing monstergood things in the site. Rawwr.

SquidMonster trophies celebrate special milestone achievements. When you publish your first lens ever. When you publish your 10th lens. Your 50th lens. Your 500dth lens. When you SquidLike 1000 lenses. When 10 people have taken your Quizzes. When you receive 500 votes in your Polls. And many many more. Just for example.

Regular Squidoo is still regular Squidoo
All the bells and whistles you see shouldn't change anything about how you normally use the site, and shouldn't cause any bugs with the fundamental tools you've always used. If you don't want to see points bubbles when you earn points, you can turn it off. If you don't want Squidmonster trophies that you've earned to show on your lensmaster bio page, you can hide them. Find out how.

There's Also....
* A new lensmaster bio page
* A new lensmaster Trophies page
* A new My Points tab and Points Activity Stream in the Dashboard. (This is really cool).
* A My Items tab so you can track the tools and opportunities you have unlocked.
* And lots more on the way.

Once we're live with these new systems, here are a few things you might try in order to play with the new systems (and earn points, and discover great lenses).

SquidLike a lens you love. See what happens. Try Liking 10 more.
FacebookLike a lens you love.
Comment on Guestbooks on lenses you enjoy.
Take polls.
Comment in Duels
Congratulate a friend on his new trophy.
Take a Quiz.
Publish a lens!
Publish another lens.
Get people involved on your lens. Get them commenting, Liking, sharing.
Add an Intro photo to the lens.
Hit the SquidooSpirit Top 40 list.
Ask for advice.
Be kind in the SquidU forum.
Complete Quests.
Publish a SquidLit lens.
Publish a SquidBoo lens.
Post your newly earned trophy to Facebook.
Publish more lenses!
Stick around.
Earn purple stars.
Get an Angel blessing.
Level Up and discover what new tool or 'unlockable' item or quest or hint you get.

You'll uncover many more things that trigger points and even trophies. This is just a start!

This FAQ is a work in progress. We'll be adding on to it for you, but I'm starting it out with a few things I wanted you to know when we launch these new systems.

Squidoo is a web platform for you to publish the best content you know how, and enjoy the boost your pages get from being part of a very successful, active community.

And now you're seeing monster trophies, +points, Levels and Quests. When did Squidoo become Farmville?

Fair question. Only, Squidoo's not a game. Not classically so. We know that. It's a site that very talented people use to publish pages about their interests, hobbies, passions, jobs and more. You don't join Squidoo in order to play a game, you don't publish a lens in order to 'win' something.

What we've come up with is a system that helps users of all levels learn and publish and interact with these pages (your pages) even more. These systems are drawing from eons old theories about human motivation and learning. They're also taking into consideration a lot of what we've heard and understood from our lensmasters over the years. And, yes, mixed in, game mechanics that probably feel familiar to anyone who has ever played any kind of game.

What's innovative about this is that no web publishing platform has ever ventured this far into game mechanics to fundamentally help people achieve their goals. It's one thing to slap a badge on someone's page, introduce a new leaderboard and call it a day. That's just flair. It's another thing to support the core behavior of people on the site, and leverage that for them, to their own benefit.

I'd encourage you to make your own game out of Squidoo. Don't just roll the dice and try to get points and see what happens. Set your own win state -- is creating 100 amazing lenses a win for you? Is making $500 a month a win for you? Is changing people's minds with an important debate lens a win for you? Great. Then play that game and win on your own rules. I think our platform can help you do that.

Or, ignore the new stuff and just keep creating pages on things you love. If you don't care about unlocking a new trophy, or celebrating your 75th lens, or unlocking a Quest that can teach you how to do something new, then ignore it.

Here's what I think. I think we all play games because there is intrinsic satisfaction, even joy, in mastering a skill. We like to learn new things and we like to do well at them. The new systems and tactics on Squidoo have a win state of awesome, active content. We're not trying to get people to click on treasure chests or sit at slot machines. We're guiding them to mastery of specific skillsets on Squidoo. This is as good as reason as ever to do this: We're helping people feel good about creating great content. I'm pretty proud of that.

Because most every other site I've seen that tries to introduce trophies or badges gets it wrong. (With the exception of Foursquare). If you're going to bother celebrating someone's achievement, do it with something a little more interesting to earn and collect than a boring gray chiclet badge.

And because the monster universe is interesting. I like the idea of recognizing someone for monstersized achievements. It's a different way to look at superlatives.

And because we already started down this monster road a few years ago when we introduced the Giant Squids program. Giant Squids, mythical monsters of the deep, come to Squidoo to publish 50 or more amazing lenses... The theme was born way back then.

And hey, because who doesn't like Godzilla? (Not the Matthew Broderick remake, oh no, not that one).

In August we ran a closed beta with Squids of all levels and experience who came in and played around with these new systems. Our goals were twofold: get lots of help debugging all this new development, and get honest feedback about the experience.

We were delighted with the help and the brilliantly useful and enthusiastic feedback we got from our beta testers.

Existing lensmasters will get a headstart on points and Levels, whereas brand new lensmasters who sign up start at Level 1 and earn their way up. Giant Squids and Giant Squid 100s will start out at even higher Levels.

We'll also start some special people out with special trophies, but for the most part trophies will be something you'll earn going forward.