Squidoo News

Archive for February, 2010

Squidoo is down for the first time in many moons. We were working to upgrade some server stuff and this is collateral hassle. We’re on it, and we have Gil to the Rescue on our side, which is always good news.

Update: We’re baaack.

In the meantime, a few ways to keep up with your Squidaddiction while we’re down:

• Catch up on Lens of the Day. Have you missed any?
• Or chatter on the LotD Facebook fan page
• SquidU!
• @Squidoonews on Twitter
• or Gil’s @Squid_Engineer Twitter stream for more updates.

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Tonight we released a fun little feature you just might fall in love with.

It’s the new Meebo toolbar. The toolbar lives at the very bottom of your Squidoo screen, fixed to the bottom of the browser window. You should see it the next time you visit Squidoo.

The Meebo Bar makes it easy for you to:

• Share a lens with your friends by email, Facebook, Twitter or Yahoo.
• Quickly access a list of fun stuff to do on Squidoo, including shortcuts to the SquidU Forum, to our latest “cobrand” projects like SquidQuiz, and to make a new lens.
• Check out related lenses. Did you know that our best lensmasters look at 8x more lenses per session than other lensmasters do?
• Shortcut over to see Lens of the Day and participate in the LotD Fan Page over on Facebook.
• You can chat! You can login to your Facebook Chat, Meebo chat, Google Chat, AIM, or any other instant messenger you use. So you can chat with your friends and coworkers and fellow lensmasters without leaving Squidoo. Imagine working on lenses together this way, getting real time, instant feedback from your friends… Just a thought.
• You can also see real time notes and mini-updates, from SquidooHQ to you, right on the Meebo Bar.

Next, a few more logistics and details to know:

• No, the Meebo chatbar won’t slow down loading of your lenses one bit. It won’t affect performance at all and also has nothing to do with SEO. Just so you know.
• Our friends over at Meebo tell us the chatbar really increases page views… meaning, the number of people who see and share your lenses. That’s never a bad thing!
• Links clicked open in new tabs.
• If you don’t feel like using the Meebo Bar, you can minimize it easily.
• Meebo will run popular ads in the toolbar from time to time. They’ll be non-invasive and easy to close, and will always contain high-quality sponsored content.

We’re adding this feature as part of a trial period right now, so we’d love to hear what you think, and how you use the Meebo Bar. Giants have already tested this out for us, but if you see any bugs, please send them our way.

Thanks.

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There is some truly awesome work being done at the Get Cracking with Bonnie and Robin Facebook group.  Bonnie and I are both really impressed with the quality of these quick lenses.   In little over a week the Get Cracking participants have already created more than 135 new lenses and the creativity with the challenge topics is amazing.

Yesterday’s topic was  to create a lens about a favorite car and  lenses were built about everything from a Nash Rambler to a 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee with a nice Mitsubishi 3000gt, a Citroen 2CV Charleston, and a Corvette thrown in to boot!

One of the most imaginative ideas to come from our car challenge was a lens created about women mechanics that contains the story of one female lensmaster’s experience working on her husband’s car.

Visit the Get Cracking with Bonnie and Robin Facebook Group to see all of the wonderful lenses being created there or become a fan and join us and the over 200 members already participating in the Get Cracking with Bonnie and Robin daily lens building challenge.

Challenge yourself for a day, a week,  a month, or any amount of time in between.  It’s up to you!

I’ve created a lens to hold all of our past Get Cracking daily lens challenges that includes examples of some of the lenses that were built for each challenge.  Use it the next time you need an idea for building a new lens or leave us a comment there with your own favorite lens writing prompt.  We might just use your idea in the future!

Squidoo – Get Cracking – Lens Writing Prompts

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Remember when encyclopedias were the gold standard for learning about important historical figures? Boring! No more; Squidoo allows you to create a dynamic collection of information about anyone, whether that be yourself or a celebrity. Speaking of dynamic celebrities, today’s LOTD goes to nevets_sdoow for Michael Jackson: Setting the Record Straight.

While I grew up with Michael Jackson’s music, there’s obviously a lot I didn’t know about his life. Everything from his skin issues to the mystery of Neverland Ranch, to his incredible variety of charitable contributions is laid out in this comprehensive lens. Think you know everything there is to know about Michael Jackson? Take another look at the Man in the Mirror.

http://www.squidoo.com/MichaelJacksonQuestions

Nominated by heather426 at lotd@squidoo.com.

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Join us for the daily "Get Cracking" lens challenge designed to help you reach your
personal Squidoo goals. Find us on Facebook at: Get
Cracking with Bonnie and Robin All are welcome!
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Hearts Mouse Pad by dndartstudio
View more Hearts Mousepads

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Starting on February 15th Robin (rms) and I are starting a brand new
program: Get cracking every morning on Facebook with your Giant Squid
Organizers,
Bonnie (bdkz) & Robin (rms).

Squidoo rookies and pros alike are welcome! This project is simple: We
want to challenge you and help you to build 1 lens a day. For as long as
you want. Toward whatever goal you have. Make it a 10 day challenge. A 
30 day challenge. A "50 lens" challenge?

We even wrote an ebook to show off exactly what we're going to do: http://cobrand.squidoo.com/GetCracking.pdf

So
join us on the "Official"
Get Cracking Facebook Group and stop by our lens:Get Cracking with Bonnie and
Robin.
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This week's Giant Squid Training Camp lens challenge is called Back to
Basics because the challenge is to build a quality lens using only 5
modules.
(We're giving you the Intro module and one Guestbook module
for free.)

No co-brand templates allowed. You have to start from
scratch.

That means your completed lens, including the intro and
one guestbook module, will only consist of 7 modules total.

You
get to choose which 5 modules you are going to use but be careful, this
challenge is a lot harder to accomplish than you think. In fact, after
completing this challenge you might just find that the famous quote, I
would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time., is
true of lens building also.

Your "Basic" lens can be about any
topic you choose.

Find ideas and more information about this
week's challenge, or post your NEW Back to Basics lenses at the Back to
Basics Lens Challenge lens.

http://www.squidoo.com/back-to-basics-lens-challenge

Post
your finished lenses (here and at the challenge lens), questions, or
comments here!
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This afternoon we will be releasing an exciting re-innovation of our Squidcasting tool set.

Squidcasting 2.0 is a powerful broadcasting system that lets you post longer updates (and messages and milestones and conversations and highlights and mini-newsletters and more!) that can go out via Twitter, Facebook, within Squidoo, and via RSS to the people who choose to follow you.

Here’s a lens I made to introduce the new Squidcasting 2.0 feature; to give you a handful of ideas and marketing concepts for making the most of it; and to help you write Squidcasts that people will love to read, appreciate getting and eagerly anticipate. On the lens you’ll also find:

• A list of 10 ideas for Squidcasts worth sending
• News about how to follow updates from your favorite lenses and lensmasters via RSS
• Tips for writing a great Squidcast
• And even a terrifically geeky (!) 5 minute video walkthrough of how to send your first Squidcast.

The secret to Squidcasting: Spotlight and broadcast interesting content to people who care about your lenses and your topics. Share it in useful, engaging bits and pieces and drips and updates. Develop an audience.

This is way more than a feature. It’s an opportunity. The upside is endless, and it’s up to you. Have fun.

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