What to do when you can't stop making new lenses?
It's the newest addiction to hit the streets.
It starts with just one.. then you build a second, and a third, and before you know it you have a dozen.
Then two dozen... then 50! You know what I mean, don't you? Because you're probably a member of Squidaholics Anonymous - lensmasters who can't stop building new lenses!
When we're not creating new lenses, we're editing our existing ones, adding new content, deleting old parts we don't like as much as we did before, adding new modules that we didn't realize fit PERFECTLY in our lens.
The infectious nature of Squidooing comes in part from passion of the staff behind it - I got the chance to meet Megan in person at eBay Live 2007 in Boston (she's on the left in the picture), and hear her explaining Squidoo to people who stopped by the booth. You can tell she's passionate about Squidoo - just as we're passionate about our lenses!
You can learn more about Squidoo Addiction from this lens.
Do you want to talk to fellow Squidoo Addicts? Check out the new Squidoo Chat function over on Captain Squid!
Squidaholics are even building their own city on the web! Come check it out at My Mini City.
Haven't started your Squidoo Experience yet?
It's easy to get started!
Just click here to get started, put together your first lens, and then play around with the variety of modules to see what best supports your topic. When you're all done creating you click on "PUBLISH" - and usually within 24 hours, your lens will be available to the world! You can also go get tips and show off your new lens in the Squidoo Discussion Boards, which are located at Squidu. So what is Squidoo?
Squidoo is a website designed to make it easy for anyone, for free, to set up a single page on a topic he or she knows or cares a lot about. Advertising revenue is shared with these content creators, and some of it is given to charity. Squidoo was launched in October 2005 by Squidoo.com, LLC based in Irvington, New York; the site came out of beta testing in March 2006.
Squidoo is a network of user-generated lenses --single pages that highlight one person's point of view, recommendations, or expertise. Lenses can be about anything, such as ideas, people or places, hobbies and sports, pets or products, philosophy, and politics. Lenses aren't primarily intended to hold content; more emphasis is placed on recommending and then pointing to content on the web. Annotation and organization and personalization delivers context and meaning.
Users who create lenses are called lensmasters. A lensmaster uses the tools available online to provide links, feeds, abstracts, and lists to users who are trying to make sense of a topic. For example, a single lens could point to Flickr photos, Google maps, blogs, eBay auctions, YouTube videos, and other links. Lensmasters are encouraged to promote personal agendas, expertise, causes, products, and opinions.
Squidoo splits its revenue with its "co-op" of lensmasters. 5% goes straight to charity, first. Then 50% goes to the lensmasters. 45% goes to Squidoo. The site is estimating that nearly half of all the lensmasters on the site are donating their royalties to any of 65 featured charities, ranging from NPR and the American Heart Association to smaller organizations like Chimp Haven and Planet Gumbo.
Squidoo was founded by author, speaker, and notable blogger Seth Godin. On Godin's founding team was his book editor Megan Casey, former Fast Company employee Heath Row, Corey Brown, and Gil Hildebrand, Jr.
So how many lenses do you have today?
Maybe you're a newbie, maybe you're a long time lensmaster
Let's see what variety we have right now!
How many lenses do you PLAN to have? When will you stop?
Start building and creating, and once you stop, you can't stop - but where do you think you'll end up?
What's New at the SquidooCool Blog
SquidooCool Blog is the work of our one and only MrLewisSmile, a renowned member of the Squidoo Community. Perhaps Squidaholics can glean a bit of his knowledge from his Blog.
- Coolest little squidlet ever
- The super-genius thefluffanutta, creator of SquidUtils.com, has just created something else.
The thi... - How to get your own Super-Auto-Promoting Blog
- Hey guys!
If you have been reading this blog for a while you will know of my past few posts about th... - Squidoo promotes your lens for you, on Twitter!
- The time has come!
Your Squidoo account is getting more integrated with other social networking site... - HubPages - Better than Squidoo?
- Hello dear reader. You look lovely today.
Question: Are you a member of HubPages?
You will surely by... - Lens Building with FoxyTunes (a cool free little tool)
- You know when you build a lens and you scoot around the web finding links, flickr pictures, youtube...
See what Captain Squid has to say to help educate the Squid-community
- Is Google a Death Knol for Squidoo?
- As many of you have probably heard, yesterday Google announced the launch of it's knol community. (Coverage from Mashable) Often accused as being a ?Wikipedia? killer, Knol is designed to be a ?moderated place for experts to share their ...
- Climbing out of The Dip
- A few months ago (right around 2 to be exact) I wrote a post on Captain Squid about ?Dips' that you run into on Squidoo. And then, a month later I wrote a bit about Setting Goals on Squidoo. I think that this month, the light is showing ...
- Squidtop passes the 200 Blog Mark
- In the last few days, the 200th blog about squidoo was created over on Squidtop. That's 200 blogs even after spam cleaning etc. Zach from SquidUber has been an awesome person to work with as well. If you haven't checked out his squidoo ...
- What is No-Follow and why do you need it
- After my SEO Tips for Squidoo yesterday, I had a few comments asking some great questions. One was by ?A Course in Miracles' and it read as follows:. Hi Captain,. What exactly is ?No-follow your affiliate links?? ...
How to defeat writer's block when building lenses
Everyone has it happen - so here's some categories to think about to help
- Favorite books: Write a lens about your favorite book, favorite series of books, or favorite author. These kinds of lenses are perfect matches for the Amazon Module and a chance to pick up some affiliate sales. I have created two of these so far: One on Robin Hobb and one on Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series.
- Favorite music: Write a lens about your favorite music, favorite singer or musician, or favorite Broadway Musical. These lenses will also be perfect fits for the Amazon modules as well as Wikipedia to provide bio's for people. I've been working on several lenses on singers, including Sarah Brightman, George Strait, and Reba McEntire.
- Favorite movies: Write a lens about your favorite movie, or favorite actor or actress, or favorite directors or producers. These kinds of lenses would be great for Netflix and You Tube modules, as well as Amazon modules. I did one lens on the works of Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker.
- Hobbies: AWESOME source for new lenses! Lots of the modules available can provide awesome source material and accessorries for lenses about your hobbies. If its a crafting hobby, You Tube can provide videos to help people learn. If its a collecting hobby, you can link to eBay items or Amazon items that someone starting in that hobby would like. Among my lens collection I have ones on Intarsia Knitting, Knitting, Cross Stitching, and How to turn a hobby into a business.
- Collections: Did I mention writing a lens about what you collect is a great idea? When you love something enough to collect it, you've got the passion to put together a great lens. I've done a few of my own: Pokemon Trading Cards and Teddy Bears.
- Do you sell online?: If you do, Squidoo lenses make great marketing tools for promoting those sales venues. I personally sell at a lot of venues, and I have created lenses to help promote them. My listing includes my eBay Store, my three websites, Blujay, Ecrater, and Etsy.
- Where do you live?: There is a Squidoo group dedicated to cities, so why not create a lens about the town where you live now, or where you grew up? For me, that's the same place: Lincoln, Nebraska. Who knows a city best than the people who live there - you can share what makes your town a great place to live, and then join the Squidoo City Guide.
- Think back to your childhood: Now, I know this will be harder for some of us than other, but how about doing a lens about your favorite childhood toys, books you loved to read growing up, or important milestones you remember, like getting your first color TV in the house - or the first TV - or electricity!
I wrote a lens about Commodore Computers, as getting our first Computer was a big event in our household. - Historical Moments you've experienced: The greatest Historical Archive we have is our collective memories. However, for most of us, once we pass away, those memories are lost. If you've experienced one of these historical moments and its touched your life in some way, why not write a lens about it and record it for posterity? That's one reason I'm so excited about the new Ken Burns documentary on World War II, as it will capture a piece of that archive for all time.
Were you a child when Pearl Harbor was attacked? Do you remember what you were doing when JFK, Robert Kennedy, or Martin Luther King were assassinated? Did you watch the Vietnam War on TV? What you were doing the morning of September 11th?
Writing a lens can share your knowledge and experiences with the rest of us, and maybe it'll be educational for you as well. - Came up with an idea that's already been done: That's OK, do it anyway! As long as you come up with your own URL, there isn't any problem with having multiple lenses on the same topic. Some ways to get a new URL is to add something like "about" or "I love" in front of the name you wanted to use that you found is taken. You can also insert hyphens or rearrange the words to get a unique URL. Once you have your unique URL, you're off and rolling!!
Why is Squidooing so addicting?
Plus, with the creation of SquidWho, we now have the ability to create a unique Who's Who list of our own, pulling in content from Wikipedia, You Tube, Amazon, all in one place to be seen and searched.
SquidWho isn't limited to the rich and famous people either, there are lenses being created for literary characters, characters from mythology, and every day John's and Janes like you and me!
The latest widget is SquidBids - which is tailored to create a lens to promote an eBay sellers business. Just like SquidWho, its puts the skeleton together and you flesh it out with the details. But they're easy to do, and will provide another great traffic source into your eBay listings! You can check out my SquidBids lens if you'd like!
Really into You Tube? Then SquidVids is the place for you! Create your own channel of video content by visiting SquidVids - then join one of the SquidVids groups that fits your content: Sports, music videos, classic TV commericals, movie trailers. Don't see a group - start your own!
Happy Halloween! You can create Halloween lenses using SquidBoo! Be sure to join the Squidboo group for other Halloween themed lenses when your new lenses are live!
True Squidaholics need Squidoo Gear!
If you want one too, you can click the logo below for more information on setting up your own store.
Here are a few of my favorites...
SquidBear: Cross-species bonding
Get your SquidSwag. Brought to you from the fantastic five at Squidoo.com.
Price: 15.99
Squidoo Messenger Bag
Price: 22.99
Future Addict Bib
Even the tiniest of tots can stake their claim with Squidoo.
Price: 8.99
My owner is addicted Dog T-Shirt
Are you addicted to Squidoo? Pamper your puppy and admit your passion.
Price: 16.99
Things to Do Squidoo Journal
The journal for all things Squidoo. Make your own to-do lists and wishlists.
Price: 10.99
After you've built lenses, join some Squid Groups!
If you don't find one that fits your lens, feel free to create your own! SquidGroups are another great way to participate in the Squidoo experience!!
How-to-Squidoo Lenses
To help our fellow addicts build bigger and better lenses
Our fellow lensmasters are the best experts we have about how to build good lenses, what modules to use to best effect, and where to get good ideas for lens creation. So Fellow Lensmasters, let's put together a list of Squidoo lenses to help our fellow addicts out!
Do You Have An Obsession With Squidoo?
Are you addicted to Squidoo? Does your husband, wi more...3 points
Squidoo Tip of The Week
SInce I've yet to create my own how to lens, I pic more...2 points
SquidU is for "You"
For a new Squidlet Squidoo can be a scary ocean of more...2 points
Find out what is new in Squidoo from the Squid Blog
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byTell us all about your Squidoo addiction!
Don't forget to come visit My Mini City to help build Squidoo City! That's all you have to do is visit!
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triathlontraining
I am addicted. :) Posted June 16, 2008 |
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Joan4
Great lens! I definitely need Squidaholics Anonymous! I am having such fun with Squidoo and it never gets boring! I learn something new every single day! It's amazing! It just goes on and on and on! Thank you for more Squidoo education this morning! Posted June 02, 2008 |
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JaguarJulie
Yep, I must confess that I too need to attend the meeting for Squidaholics Anonymous. Just ask my hubby and he'll tell you what a Squidoo nut I am. I am what I am! Love your lens. AB Posted April 18, 2008 |
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clouda9
As I was driving to work the other morning my favorite morning channel news announced that a Dr. was releasing a recent study about Internet addiction and the psychological implications. Posh! I know I'm crazy, especially about Squidooing...how is he going to find me...LOL! Posted April 07, 2008 |
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happy-jack
Do you have treatment for Posted March 23, 2008 |
