Squidaholics Anonymous

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic by 58 people | Log in to rate

Ranked #1,083 in Squidoo Tips, #207,465 overall

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.

Once you're hooked, just keep buildling up your lens count. Make it to 50 - and you could become a Giant Squid like these fine folks!

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 community website that allows users to create pages (called lenses) for subjects of interest. Squidoo is in the top 500 most visited sites in the world, and in the top 300 most viewed in the United States.Squidoo.com traffic details Alexa.com. Squidoo grew 91% in 2008, and had 900,000 handbuilt lenses as of February 1st, 2009.

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!

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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?

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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.

RIP Squidoo Groups
The day we all knew would come has arrived. Squidoo groups are dead and buried, never to be seen aga...
The $2000 Lens Challenge
Joe from CaptainSquid is back from many adventures, with a new challenge for himself and anyone who...
#1 Most Important Thing… About Guestbooks
If you've put Guestbook modules on your lenses, and you have 10+ published, you'll be very familiar...
Pinging Your Lenses
WHAT IS A PING?
Any time you update certain webpages or publish a new blog post or lens, you can sen...
New Squidoo Job – More Money For Lensmasters $
According to Seth Godin's blog, Squidoo is hiring a sales pro.
Here is what the official lens says:...

See what Captain Squid has to say to help educate the Squid-community 

Captain's Tweets for 2009-12-20
http://3xp6t.th8.us 10 annoying SEO topics - So true! #. Powered by Twitter Tools.
Fun Squidoo Payout Stats Oct 09
Fun Squidoo Stats from October 2009. ? The top earner made more than $1300 for the month. ? Hundreds of people earned $100 or more. ? More than a thousand people earned more than $10. ? Lensmasters donated more than $5000 to the Squidoo ...
First Earnings Surface in Squidoo Quest
Our First Sale hit in the Squidoo Quest! It took a little less than 4 weeks for our first sale to come through Amazon, and only with 3 lenses published (have another venture that I'm trying to get off the ground, it's been a time suck. ...
Rethinking Keyword Research
I've received a great response so far on my little Squidoo Quest and am noticing some repeated questions on keyword/topic research so I feel that we should dedicate a few posts here to talking about it. Here's my general philosophy on ...

How to defeat writer's block when building lenses 

Everyone has it happen - so here's some categories to think about to help

Sometimes when I get stuck, I think of big-picture categories to help me get unstuck... Here are some to help you get unstuck, and get those creative juices flowing again
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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? 

Because its so much fun and so easy to do! You can create a very simple lens in less than 10 minutes - but we know that true masters can spend hours pouring over the smallest details of their lenses, trying to make them the best they possibly can be.

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! 

Good thing Squidoo has a Cafepress store set up for us!!

If you want one too, you can click the logo below for more information on setting up your own store.


Buy or Create Hilarious T-shirts and more


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: 14.99Buy Now

Future Addict Bib

Even the tiniest of tots can stake their claim with Squidoo.

Price: 10.99Buy Now

My owner is addicted Dog T-Shirt

Are you addicted to Squidoo? Pamper your puppy and admit your passion.

Price: 18.99Buy Now

Things to Do Squidoo Journal

The journal for all things Squidoo. Make your own to-do lists and wishlists.

Price: 11.49Buy Now

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After you've built lenses, join some Squid Groups! 

Squid Groups are collections of like-themed lenses, there are already a wide variety available to pick from.

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!!

Find out what is new in Squidoo from the Squid Blog 

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Tell 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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by katiyana


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