Is It Too Early To Tell?

It seems that some changes are in store at Squidoo. What exactly they are, I don’t know. It may be too early to tell, but I think that they will bode well for most of the community and most certainly the site as a whole.

One thing that has to be remembered is that above all, Squidoo is a business entity.  Squidoo thrives on the basic principle of making money. And for any business to say that they exist for any other reason is an out and out lie. Making money, even for a charity driven entity such as Untied Way, is always the central focus.

Regaining, or more precisely refocusing, the basic vision of  Squidoo seems to be the logical direction of the changes. After all, it has never been stated not find your niche and write about. Or not find the one passion you have and write about it. We need to build our tribes. Use our brands. Isn’t making money why we all came to Squidoo to begin with?

That’s the reason I came to Squidoo. Make money through promoting my e-commerce store. But, as I have stated countless times, I have found my canvas. A place to display my passion about many subjects. The act of writing has become my passion. The research, learning about something different, and toying with my own brain are all part of this passion. Seems like my niche has changed in scope and focus.

Believe me, I still am passionate about biker leathers, but I think I see now that to be successful in the future at Squidoo, I am going to have to create, no make that build, lenses that are leaning towards being spammy sales lenses. Belive me, I feel confident that I could sprinkle just enough quality content into a sales lens to make it not seem overly spam filled, but it will be less of a creation by me.

There are no tribes for writers. They are called groupies.

Zhongguo Through The Eyes Of An Artist

It’s late a Sunday night. All day the weather has been unusually oppressive. I mean, it is April and it is Ohio, but mid to upper eighties and humid? Anyway, the sun set just as a cold front assaulted the area. Temperatures drop and rain begins playing its tune on the asphalt street outside your office window.

As the rain builds into a mighty crescendo, the the last of the season’s cabin fever takes hold. I need to travel, but I am stuck. I need to go somewhere now. Right now.

Then I stumbled onto something. I fell across a magic adventure that found me riding a crowded train east. East from the extreme western reaches of China into the interior known as the Middle Kingdom. The salt of the earth people, the cuisine, music, and scenes of natural beauty are making it hard to leave Zhongguo.

Lensmaster solowriter takes us into the Middle Kingdom by allowing us to look at her journal and to see the country through her wonderfully artistic eye.

Take the trip, you won’t regret it.

Speculating Can Be A Blast

Speculation can be fun. Take the NCAA tournament for instance; everyone is an expert and their brackets will win out in the end. As the tourney rolls on, more and more “experts” get quieter and quieter. In the end there ends up being quite a few less know-it-alls still interested in the outcome.

In the past few weeks at Squidoo there has been two events that have caused some wild speculation. First it was the drop in Yahoo traffic. What is causing it? Should we care? Has Yahoo dinged Squidoo?

I weighed in with my speculation in that thread at SquidU. Mainly what I was (and still am) trying to convey is that the Yahoo problem with Squidoo is non-exsistant. Yahoo is having problems internally because of financial woes. Yahoo has been discarding baggage quicker than a quick turn around cruise ship at port in the Bahamas.  Within the last week or so they have hired a new CEO who is cleaning house and there is the on going talks with Microsoft about a possible buy-out or at the very least an outsource of the Yahoo search function to Microsoft. On top of all that, Yahoo has been retooling the algorithm a lot over the last six weeks or so.

So no, Yahoo has not dinged Squidoo. It just seems that one of the algorithm changes smacked Squidoo the wrong way and HQ is having to redo a little bit of the site’s SEO.

Funny thing, that event that caused a lot of discussion has taken a distant backseat to the current lensranking update problem. We are in day five without an update in the Lensrank. Speculation is wild and rampant. Maybe what has made the speculation even greater is that until today, there has been not one peep out of HQ on this matter. And that one peep was just a thanks for our patience.

My contribution to the speculation? I have created a fun TWTTRSTRM lens so that we can all tweet our wild speculations about what is happening with Lensrank. So far we have Zombies, dogs, aliens, errant vacation schedules and even a sex tape scandal.

I’m really liking the experts showing up for this round of speculation.

SquidLog: My Writing Heart’s Home

A few weeks back, I received an e-mail that floored me. Absolutely overwhelmed me. It was an invite to join the SquidLog team as a contributing author. Among other emotions I was deeply touched because I have been trying to sneak into an established writing position, and when I say sneak, I mean sneak.

I have always loved to write, but I have never been confident enough to attempt getting my writing published. And then along came Squidoo. I became addicted to lens creation, couldn’t walk away from it (still can’t), and the community. I am driven to create and what good is crating if you don’t publish? And what happens when you publish? People read. When people read an article, they decide if they want to read more of the author’s work. Someone noticed my writing and decided I would be a good fit at SquidLog.

SquidLog is the e-zine, or more affectionately known as the Squidoozine, dedicated to all things Squidoo. When Squidlog was first announced I thought it would be a great place to write. Somewhere I could maybe be seen. But, I didn’t want to ask. Maybe it was the fear of rejection. Most likely it WAS the fear of rejection. Also, I like to promote my work through my work. I like to get noticed. I feel it allows me to keep working through my expression and not transform myself to fit a mold.

I was approached by Chefkeem to join the team. Of course I said yes, and before you know it Squidster, the brainchild behind the publication, contacted me with some particulars and I was all set. Yay!

Writing for SquidLog has began to instill some needed qualities in my writing habits. I am looking harder at my rewrites, thus my articles are a bit more polished. And I have a self imposed deadline. The deadline is doing wonders for my creativity because I venture farther to find writing subjects.

At any rate, I am deeply attached to SquidLog for giving me the opportunity and for having the opportunity to publicly write somewhere other than my own blogs. For this, I will write there as long as I am welcome.

Thank you Chefkeem and Squidster! Love you both.

The Twilight Zone

Maybe the most famous theme music in television history. Possibly the best written series in television history. Definitely engaging and entertaining, the Twilight Zone left a mark on entertainment that will never be erased.

Lensmaster MobyD gives an in depth look at the show that featured science fiction/fantasy/horror stories that were steeped in social commentary.  His excellent tribute to the series includes a the original series as well as the later revivals.

This is must see t.v.

Challenge? What Challenge?

The Squidoo  Giant Squid Challenge June 2009 is in the recruitment stage and the competition is heating up.  A lot of trash talking and barb tossing going on. The fun is just getting started.

Here’s the problem with the whole deal. Team WiWon has it sewn up and the other teams are jockeying for that coveted first loser spot. I mean really just check out the power on team WiWon. Some heavy hitters goin’ on, and there’s already a trash talk page that is surely getting the ire of the four also rans up. By the looks of the other teams talk, they can’t hang.

The cool thing that is sure to come out of this whole business is this: there really won’t be any losers. Everyone is having fun and I believe that this run for the Giants will set the bar for the future. The teams:

• Jolly Judicious Jetsetters
• Blue Ribbon Squids
• Rocking Squids
• Squid Squad
• The Awesomely Omnipotent Team WiWon

These teams will be legendary in the hallowed halls of Squidoo.

Well, actually the only team name that will be remembered is WiWon. No one ever remembers the also rans.

Enjoy!

Eyes To The Left: How Eyetrack III Can Help

Didn't you

Eyetrack III, for those who don’t know, was a study conducted in 2004 looking at how readers look at web pages. The study conducted  by the Poynter Institute  used a small sampling of 46 readers to formulate their findings. True, that sample seems small and may have been tainted by the fact that the readers were mostly college students, but I think the findings can be helpful when we create Squidoo lenses, blogs, or web sites.

Let’s look at a list of findings from the study. You may find some of the very interesting and useful when building your pages:

• The first place eyes went to was the upper left on the page
• Strong headlines rule in drawing attention, almost always when placed in the upper left
• Readers tend to actually read smaller text and scan over larger text
• Partial viewing of headlines and blurbs is common, usually (you guessed it) the upper left area
• Less than a second is given to reading a headline
• Horizontal navigation near the top of the page rules the day
• Shorter paragraphs in a one column layout performed best
• Bigger text ads located close to the content worked better than “display” ads
• Large pictures of clean faces grabbed the reader’s attention for longer periods of time

Couple those points with the study’s tracking layout as it is overlayed onto a Lens page and we can make some pretty smart decisions on how to build our sites:

How our eyes flow across a web page

Based on this graphic, I found it interesting that our eyes fall right on the big title of our lenses, and then tracked around the AdSense ads. And look! The tracking actually crosses the intro where? Upper left.  A good place for bold “care words” and links! I also found it interesting that the movements were strong on the horizontal side, making a strong case for horizontal navigation.

At the Eyetrack III website, you can find Heat Maps,  A flag graphic, and explanations of the points listed above. A good look at the site  may provide us with one more awesome tool in creating those killer lenses.

Thanks!

Oodles Of Doodles

When I was a child, my mother would doodle the hours away, drawing mostly people and floor plans. She would doodle up the most most beautiful people, and toss the drawings only to start a new batch the next day.

Lensmaster MeltedRachel displays some amazing doodles and accompanying artwork in her very entertaining lens Melted Doodles.  Take a look at at what coolness can be the product of aimless drawing.

Enjoy!

Stuffed Cabbage

Some people would tell you that the time for eating cabbage rolls is over until autumn fires back up, but I’ll eat cabbage rolls anytime I get near them. And let me tell ya, this Stuffed Cabbage lens by the awe-inspiring lensmaster JaguireJulie waters my mouth every time I visit it.

Oh yeah, one othe little thing about this lens, no big deal really….It’s the NUMBER ONE lens at Squidoo!

Hats Off Julie!

Critiques: How Well Do You Give And Recieve?

Lensmaster Victoria_Neely lays out the good stuff when it comes to critiquing in the Squidoo Critique Me section of the SquidU forum.

Her lens Lens Critiques: Giving and Receiving Critiques on the SquidU Forum warns against the pitfalls of haphazard submission and critiquing. The pointers include a “you shouldn’t submit if your feelings get hurt easily” piece of advice as well as as a “be honest but diplomatic” tip for reviewers.

If everyone would read study this lens before entering the Critique Me area, reviews would be constructive and Squidoo would benefit overall.

Enjoy!