Squidoo News

Archive for May, 2009

A little birdy told me that today is Giant Squid lensmaster Spirituality’s birthday! 

Happy Birthday Katinka!

Be sure to stop by the Spirituality Blog or one of her many lenses to wish her a great day!

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Squidoo has an awesome community of users (we call them lensmasters). At any given time, someone is cooking up a new promotion or challenge. It’s hard not to stay busy and, in fact, easy to get too busy. Here, though, is a community project that’s worth making time for.

Lensmaster Rewards4Life (actually David and Marta) is putting together a Squidoo community cookbook, a real, hard-copy book full of recipes provided by lensmasters on Squidoo. The book will be available to purchase and, believe me, this will be a one-of-a-kind cookbook that you will want to own.

Thing is, David and Marta need more recipes to bring this project to life. They’ve set June 1st as the deadline for recipe submissions and today, with less than a week to go, they must have 41 more recipes to keep the cookbook project going.

It’s quite simple to submit a recipe. All of the steps are outlined in their lens, Squidoo Recipes Cookbook, but to summarize here is what you need to compile and email to David and Marta: Your recipe, the category (side dish, dessert, etc.), a list of ingredients, the directions, your picture or avatar, and a photo of the completed dish. They also want to include a link to your lens about the recipe, if you have one, and a short bio of you.

With all the magnificent recipe lenses on Squidoo and all of our talented chefs, certainly there are enough people to provide the remaining recipes. What a shame if this project doesn’t fly because of lack of support. So, why not set aside a few minutes today and gather your favorite recipe and submit it with the supporting documentation to David and Marta at the address on their lens.

Let’s eat!

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What do Kris Allen and I have in common? We’ve both recently been surprised with an unexpected honor.

Kris, of course, is the new American Idol. I, on the other hand, have received the honor of having the Lens of the Day on Squidoo today for, whadya know, my Kris Allen, American Idol lens.

Kris Allen was surprised with his honor. I was surprised with mine, too.

Wow. I’m in great company.

Congratulations, Kris! Go, me!

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I love Squidoo, love the lensmasters, love the whole spirit that permeates the place.

What I love best is the way that lensmasters cheer each other on, and there are no better cheerleaders than the Giant Squid Organizers (GSO’s for short). Frankly, I don’t know how Bonnie, Robin, and Patti do it. They run a very popular section of the SquidU forum, they have blogs that promote the Giant Squid program on Squidoo, they review lenses and award purple stars weekly, and they continue to make high-quality lenses of their own, just to mention a few of their regular activities.

Besides the GSO’s, the whole Giant Squid community, as well as the wannabe Giants, promote challenges and other activities designed to encourage excellence in lensmaking. If you’re new to Squidoo and don’t really understand what I’m talking about (yet) then you must visit the So You Want to Be a Giant Squid? section of the SquidU forum and see the spirit of Squidoo in action.

Catch the spirit of Squidoo! Your lensrank will thank you for it.

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Today is our favorite chef’s birthday. I won’t tell you which milestone he has reached, but you’ll figure it out when you visit his birthday pages, here and here.

Be sure and leave him a birthday greeting.

Happy, happy birthday Achim, and many more!

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I’m having so much fun on Zazzle. I hope you’ll check out all my designs, including Squidoo promotion designs, at The Green-Eyed Cat.

I Squidoo, Do You? by susan52z

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Have you noticed that “purple star” label on the left side of your lensmaster dashboard? It’s been there for a very long time, always with a little mouse-over message explaining that purple stars aren’t working yet, but they will be soon. Well, soon has arrived and the purple star program is now active, and was it ever worth the wait!

If you’re not a Giant Squid and this program doesn’t motivate you to make those 50 lenses and qualify for Giant, then I don’t know what will. Only Giants are eligible for the purple star award and, indeed, only a few giant-made lenses will receive a purple star each week. When you see a purple star on a lens, you will know that it’s a top-notch, high-quality lens, quality worth emulating. Purple star lenses will be showcased, announced on Squidoo weekly, so they won’t be hard to find. If you’re still trying to learn what makes a quality lens, seek these out and study them to learn what makes a really, really good lens.

Want to see the first group of recipients? They’re included in this SquidU forum post, along with a link to the Purple Star lens with more details about the program. If you’re serious about succeeding on Squidoo, this is material you will want to spend some time with. Enjoy!

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I’ve discussed in the past the practice of asking on a Squidoo lens that people rate the lens. Sometimes people do that well; sometimes they appear to be begging for a rating and that turns me off. I’ve settled into the practice of hyperlinking the lens at the bottom with the little statement, “Return to the top to rate this lens.” Clicking on that link brings my visitors back to the top of the lens, making it easy to find the stars with just a subtle reminder.

Now, lensmaster extraordinaire thefluffanutta has made this process even simpler by inventing a widget called “Love This Lens?” By adding this widget to your lens you can bring the stars to the bottom (or wherever you want them), saving your visitor a trip back to the top! In fact, not only does the widget include stars with which to rate the lens, it also features “email it,” “favorite it,” and “lensroll it” links. How convenient is that?!

Check out this very cool widget, available to one and all on its own lens called, quite naturally, Love This Lens Widget. Follow the directions and watch the stars come out!

Hats off and a grateful bow to thefluffanutta!

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For the last 10 days or so we had a poll posted here which asked the following question: What do you think of lensmasters placing multiple affiliate ads on their profile page and in the bio section of their lenses? The results are in.

We had only 21 votes and several comments. Thirty-eight percent of those who voted said only one or two ads at the most should appear while 28 percent said it was fine to include multiple ads. Twenty-three percent voted that more than one or two ads looks unprofessional while nine percent said they didn’t like the look at all.

In the comments, one person had not really noticed ads on Squidoo lenses, one admitted to having placed too many ads in the past, and one said she preferred to keep her profile panel clean and so did not post ads there at all. Another lensmaster stated that he saw no need for ads, but that the product on the lens should sell itself. Good point.

The conclusion that I come to, then, is that most people don’t mind an extra ad or two. It seems that one or two ads that are related to the topic of the lens are about the right amount while any more than that might appear unprofessional or even unsightly.

Thanks to those who participated in the poll. Let me know if the results cause you to reevaluate the way you use, or don’t use, affiliate ads on your Squidoo lenses.

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I really love lensmasters on Squidoo. I love them for a lot of reasons, but today I love them for the very kind comments they leave on my lenses.

Maybe I’m just insecure, but it certainly does make me feel good when people say they enjoy my work. I’m talking about really sincere comments, and I’ve had a lot of those lately.

Thank you, each of you, for making me smile. I hope my comments on your lenses make you smile, too.

(picture courtesy BL1961 through creative commons)

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