Giant Squid Tips

Hey Giant Squids! 

Hope you’ve all had a chance to take advantage of, or at least visit, the Answer Deck.  Besides a few great lenses that were hand-picked and moved in, Giants are the only lensmasters who have full AD creation privileges. 

One important way that new lensmasters find information is through the search feature.  While single tags are the most popular way to tag lenses, many newbies innately search using phrases and questions. 

So if a new lensmaster goes to the AD and types in “how do I make a link active” nothing comes up (unless of course one of you beat me to the punch!)  But there are dozens of lenses on HTML.

So how can you increase the chances of getting your lens found?
1. add tag phrases that you use on your lens, such as “how to add a photo”
2. alter phrases from a reader POV “how do I add a photo”
3. see how people are phrasing questions on the forum

This is a simple and effective way to get more eyeballs on your lenses (plus you’re doing us a huge favor!)

Dearest Giants,

My you look handsome today.

Tonight is the first ever Giant Squids Speed Dating campfire chat. We blogged about it here and here.

The link to get in is: https://squidsquad.campfirenow.com/81859

Show up at 8pm EST. (Being a few minutes early is okay, but remember that squatting for hours in advance gives you cramps). First come first entered, up to 20 Giants.

See you there, sweetheart.

This is a pretty long post. For Giants in a hurry, the summary is this: We’d love your help testing 2 new lensbuilding features. Skip to the bottom for info.

But first, the background and theory

Every day, hundreds of thousands of new people stop by Squidoo. (Adds up to 10 million visits a month, by the way.)
Of those, thousands decide they want to try their hand at making lens for the first time.
Of those, usually only a few hundred actually make something worth talking about, worth editing and growing and being proud of over time.

I think we can do better.

It’s been a long time since Squidoo focused on making it easier for newbies to make pages. We’re still using the wizard we created 2 years ago.

So as an experiment, we’ve come up with two new options: the Magicbuilder for newbies, and the super streamlined Quickbuilder for pros (more on the Quickbuilder in the next post).

The theory behind the Magicbuilder…

… is that no one likes to feel dumb when they’re trying something new. When was the last time you tried to program your Tivo or play around on a new website or cook a recipe and didn’t quite get what the instructions wanted you to do with it? Frustrating. Making a lens shouldn’t feel like that.

The Magicbuilder was created to give a new user a decent headstart on a lens. It’s less daunting to pick from multiple choice, in the beginning, than to stare at a blank page. It’s good process to show someone the cause and effect of what they’re building. It’s more fun to start off with something that looks halfway decent than something all the way empty.

There’s a catch, of course, that our experienced lensmasters know all about. And that’s this: there’s a gulf between good and great. The Magicbuilder will help people start okay lenses and learn a little about how modules work. But to get to great, you need to add a lot more. Real, personal, recommended, handpicked, curated opinions and ideas and products and content. There are some options within the magicbuilder to add that personal touch and commentary right from the beginning. Or they can skip that part, and work on developing their lenses over time.

So…

We’re releasing the Magicbuilder to Giant Squids only today, in the hopes you’ll take this beta version for a test drive and let us know how it feels. Think back to your days as a newbie, your challenges making your very first lens, and view the process with that in mind.

Click here to do some beta playtesting.

I’m also really excited to offer you guys a Quickbuilder option for making lenses. It’s a single page lens setup that experienced lensmasters can fly through. And, with the addition of multiple custom lens templates, you have a serious amount of horsepower at your fingertips. You can test out the Quickbuilder by clicking the “Switch to Quickbuilder” link at the top of the Magicbuilder. And back again.

A few disclaimers:

–We’re adding lots of templates for each category as we go. And even (at last) new categories/topics! So if you find something that doesn’t quite work for you, I’m sure we’ll have better options soon.
–You’ll see little popup “tooltips” along the right side of the MagicBuilder. We’re adding tons more there, too. If you’d like to suggest any and have your face and Squidtrick featured, send them my way.
–Finally, if you run into bugs or have thoughts on either or both the Magicbuilder or Quickbulder, please send them directly to me at megan@squidoo.com. As always, we make improvements, live, based on your feedback.

Thanks for giving it a whirl!

A speed date, that is. No, you haven’t logged into a harmonious, match-making site; you’re still reading the Giant Squid Tips blog, right where you belong. We’re talking about “speed dating” for your lens.

There will be a campfire chat on Wednesday, August 27th at 8 o’clock pm (EST) that’s open to all Giants (first come, first entered, up to 20 Giants). We’ll post the address here that afternoon. Show up with the link to a lens of yours that you would like other Giant Squids to look at and give you quick opinions, advice, suggestions and praise on. It can be one that you have a specific question about or problem with, one that you’re looking for promo ideas for, or maybe you just want a general editorial review on one.

More details are here.

20 Giant Squids, 20 lenses, 20 minutes…great fun.

(Roses not included. Chocolates sold separately.)

–Patti (aka GypsyPirate)

To Giants (stop) Danger in Santa Poco (stop) The Squidgang is pretty excited to see how you guys like the new Lijit module (stop) If you’ve had a chance to play with it on a lens or three, send me a link and your thoughts (stop) Who knows, might even get LotD (stop) Thanks! (stop)

I was kidding about the Santa Poco thing (stop) It’s from Three Amigos (stop)

signed,
your ever faithful Editor in Chief,

Megan
(end)

The Giant Squid Organizers and Greeters need your help! We’re on the look out for lensmasters who you think would make fantastic Giants. So we’re having a Giant Squid Treasure Hunt complete with awesome prizes like a 2 Gig iPod shuffle! Interested? Then visit the Treasure Hunting Lens for all the details…and be sure to pass this on to your fellow Giants!

Just launched. As in, just.

The Coding Crew surprised me by getting it ready sooner than expected. Love when they do that!

SquidBlog post about it here.

Go check out your own profile page. Follow the instrux from the SquidBlog post above, and start adding more content. The page will grow as you turn on various settings and play with new features.

Have fun!

Announcing: The Giant Squids Speed Dating Session
(It’s more like, uh, speed lensing).

No, you don’t have to get all cuted up for this. No, we’re not going Match.com on you.

But the format of speed dating is fascinating, fast-paced, and gives everyone a shot at the spotlight (and feedback!). So, we’re hosting a speed dating session for Giant Squids and their lenses. It will be held as a Campfire Chat, just like the last 2 chats have been. But this time every person (up to 20 of you, first come first served) must show up with one lens, just one, that you want roundtable feedback on. We’ll spend 1 minute on each person’s lens. Everyone in the chat will type, in a flurry of fingers, with feedback and ideas and praise and thoughts for promotion… whatever strikes them about your lens in that instant. Save the transcript and implement the ideas you like, whenever you like.

20 people, 20 lenses, 20 minutes, lots of real live input from the smartest lensmasters on Squidoo.

When: Wednesday August 27th at 8pm EST.
Where: I’ll post the campfire link on this blog earlier that day. No passwords or registration needed. Just click it.
Who: The first 20 Giants and (Hundred Club Giants too!) who make it in at 8pm. No showing up an hour before and squatting, please.
Why: Wouldn’t you like 20 of Squidoo’s best lensmasters looking at your lens?

It was fun (and not a little hilarious) talking to everyone in the Campfire Chat on Wednesday. Thanks to all Giants who stopped by.

Here’s the transcript if you want to dig through and relive it.

Of course, since we can only take 20 people at a time, some of you couldn’t get in. The good news is, not only did we save some toasted marshmallows for you, but we’ve also got another, more structured chat planned. Announcing soon. (Like, in a minute).

Here’s the invitation I posted on Monday.

And here’s the link to get you in:

https://squidsquad.campfirenow.com/5c6ae

So mosey on over at 4pm EST today and say hello. That link will send you right into the chat room. We don’t need no stinking passwords. Remember, first come first served, up to 20 people. We’ll start promptly at 4:05, to give everyone time to get settled.

Looking forward to it!

At long last: SquidZippers is ready to rock and roll.

We started this as a small project exclusively for Realtors, believing that they would make terrific “mayors” of their neighborhoods.

Now it’s time to open it to the rest of the world. And, as always, Giants get the first chance to jump on it.

Here’s how it works. There are approx. 43,000 zip codes in the United States. We have a “Headquarters” page for each one, with local stats and overview data from partners like discoverourtown.com, Zagat and Yelp. For example, here’s the page for 92107, a neighborhood in San Diego CA where I grew up.

Now, there are 2 things you could do with this. First, you could find your zip code HQ page like this, and sound off in the Guestbook and vote in the polls.

Even better, you could join that zip code community by making your own pages within it. An overview page of your hometown. A lens about the 5 best date nights to go on. The top 9 things a visitor to your zip code absolutely shouldn’t miss. A review of the local dog wash. Your favorite Mexican restaurant, ever. A debate about whether the old baseball stadium should be torn down. A bake sale for your local church. Whatever you care about in your offline, local world — talk it up on SquidZippers!

Chances are you’ll be doing your favorite small businesses a huge favor, while having fun recommending the stuff you know best and interact with everyday. Not to mention snagging a neat niche spot of the web that gets a lot of traffic.

You may have seen our transcript from the 100 Club Only chat a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun to hear from so many of our Giants.

So, here’s another go at it!

This time for any and all Giants. The first 20 who show up that day. Roll up your sleeves and dig in. Limited time warranty. Details as follows:

What: Giant Squids chat. Just typing, no phone. (So you can sneak into the chatroom from work, of course). Moderated by Megan and the Giant Squid Organizers.

When: This Wednesday, August 13th, starting at 4pm EST. (I know, we have lots of time zones to cover. We’ll stagger future chats to give everyone a shot).

Who: 20 Giants. First come first served. If you’re in the 100 Club and already had a whirl at this, you’re welcome to stop by at 4:05. If the spots aren’t full, hop in. But come late to give someone else a shot first.

Where: The chat will be held in a 37Signals Campfire chat room. Super easy to get to, and you won’t need to hassle with any logins or passwords. I’ll post the link and access code here that day. Mark your calendars!

If you miss it: We’l be sure to post the transcript. And we’ll post a schedule for future chats soon, so you can plan for others in advance.

See you there.