Squid Angel Blessings by Chef Keem

I joined Squidoo.com on January 29th, 2008. Many lensmasters confess to some kind of addiction to squidooing, and I'm certainly not in denial of mine. Squidoo has given me a wonderful creative outlet, a huge class room for learning the ropes about Web 2.0 and internet business, and a gaggle of beautiful new friends. And I didn't have to pay a dime - I even made some money for having all that fun!

By the end of June I had 50 quality lenses on my account, and on July 2nd, Headquarters awarded me with a Giant Squid badge. I'm very proud of my 2 Lens-of-the Day selections, Organic Flavored Agave Nectar and The Anonymous Alcoholic.

In September of 2008, I received the honor of Squid Angel status. I can't tell you how humbled and overjoyed I felt about my nomination. I'm also aware of the responsibilities attached to a Squid Angel badge: To improve the quality of Squidoo.com by supporting the good and suppressing the bad - in the form of "Squid Angel Blessings" and "Squid Angel Dings".

And then there are several more Squid Angel activities happening out of the general public eye - emails to Squidoo HQ with recommendations for "Lens of the Day" honors, reporting of spammy stuff, discovery of promising new lensmasters, direct emails to lensmasters with tips and support...to name just a few.



I'm a Squid Angel in Squidoo heaven. Do you want to know what it looks like, up here?

It's as beautiful as the Gulf of Alaska coast near the mouth of the Bering Glacier...



It's as liberating as spreading your wings on a summer day near the Chugach Mountain Range...



It's as ecstatic as doing the "Giant Moose Dance" in the rain...



Squid Angel graphics (dark and light logo with wings) by Squid Angel Comfortdoc.
Creative Commons. © 2009 LensDoc (Kirsti A. Dyer).
Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License.

Spam is great when fried and served with roasted potatoes or on a toasted bun.

Spam in a Squidoo lens, however, is as useless as a monster rack on a moose cow.

Spam is annoying, boring, ineffective and rude. It achieves the opposite of what you're after (happy return visitors) - it turns people off!

Spam breaks a Squid Angel's heart!



Spam shall be dinged to "Cloud minus 666" (it's cold, down there)!

As a Squid Angel, I'm still a regular Squidoo lensmaster like everyone else in this great community. Squidoo HQ honored me with extra authority (Squid Angel powers) for a certain amount of time, because they liked my lenses and my involvement in forum discussions and charity-related activities.

Many of my lenses feature a lightly humorous approach to my topics - I don't take myself too seriously. I love to explore other people's "take" on a large variety of subjects and I respect their opinions. That's all I have for my life, too - my opinions. I hope to be inspired to change my opinions often, as I learn and grow within this generous community of authors.

So, what this means is that I won't pass any Squid Angel judgment based on the "message" of a lens. If the presentation is skillful according to general Squidoo guidelines, a lens with honest, original, and personal content can probably persuade me to giving it a hearty Squid Angel Blessing.

As the second quote states so beautifully, we all need to work together to make Squidoo.com and our lenses a success on the web. Unique, remarkable content brings visitors to the site and helps Squidoo as a business venture. Squid Angels, as the extended arm of Squidoo HQ, help to promote great content by rewarding it with rank-boosting blessings. This, in turn, shall motivate lensmasters to create more quality pages for their increased earnings through Squidoo's growing success. I'm proud and happy to be part of such a glorious win-win system.

In a moment I will list some examples of what I consider absolute Masterpiece Lenses. Here's what I love about them - they all present one or more of my favorite qualities in a Squidoo page:

• Great story-telling


• Emotionally invested


• Personal experiences


• Beautiful pictures or illustrations


• Well-researched information


• Silly thigh slappers, a hoot, hilariously bizarre!

I love to read every word in these pages, not just glance through them. They make me want to support the lensmasters as much as I can - with comments, star ratings, favorites, lens rolling, LotD recommendations, social bookmarkings, and blessings.

Have a good look and see what I mean...

See his marvelous work at his SquidArt Lens and check out his other fine pages, too.



Squidoo logo is a trademark of Squidoo LLC. Graphics and Squidoodles © 2008 by tagsforkids (Steve Thompson) . Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License.