I'm delighted that Community Organizer and fellow Squidstaffer Kimberly Dawn Wells is going to join me in selecting and posting a few Lenses of the Day a week. She spends her days and nights (and wee a.m. hours in between) playing on Squidoo and uncovering great new lenses and trends. So she's an excellent fit to contribute to Lens of the Day from time to time. Here's her first selection for you! Read on, friend, read like the wind...

While some sites like to stay away from controversy, we're all for a healthy debate. That's one thing that comes to mind with this well-crafted lens, Baseball and Steroids by lensmaster StephenC.

As lensmaster jeffwend puts it, "I may not agree with everything he says, but he lays out his thoughts and opinion well. He makes a point and backs it up. Good content on a controversial subject."

Your topic or stance doesn't necessarily have to be well-liked to be popular. As long as you host the debate clearly and fairly, you can benefit by taking a leadership role at the center of a hot conversation.

And a reminder to all lensmasters: It's up to you to moderate your Guestbooks and Duels and other participation modules. You can always set your module to let you approve comments first, so that spam or nastiness doesn't make it on to your page. Here are a few good tips for running your own Guestbook show!

It keeps popping up in your Twitter timeline, doesn't it.

There it is again!

What is this TwttrList thing?

It's a new Squidoo-powered Twitter utility for lensmasters and tweeters. It's a fun and quick way to organize a "best of" or top 10 list of your favorite tweets on a certain topic. Think of it as editing, archiving (and dare I whisper, monetizing?) Twitter.

But the best way to learn is to clap your eyeballs on a few great, pure, simple examples.

I like "The Best of #tangothursdays on Twitter" because this person is adding a human, curated and useful layer to the mess than can be hashtags on Twitter. Hashtags are a terrific way to track what's happening now on Twitter. But what happened before? How about a way to find and highlight the best of a certain topic? That's all TwttrList, baby. Bonus: This lens is also a good way to make #tangothursdays searchable and findable in search engines.

Here's another short and sweet example of how to use a TwttrList. DanceAdvantage is just organizing the best testimonial tweets from her followers. Not a bad idea for anyone promoting something on Twitter. Not bad at all.

A few more fun examples:

Best Of Lensmaster Shout-Outs
Best of Guy Kawasaki on Twitter
Twitter Tips by Top Twitterers
The Best Tweets Are From Space!
Funniest Star Trek Movie Tweets, Immortalized
Best Composers on Twitter

P.S. And just because sometimes it's fun to run a carnival, we're going to give away a Kindle for every 1,000dth TwittrList created. Up to the first 5,000 TwttrLists. Simple as that. Go ahead and be the early bird. More info here.

It's good to be the king.

Or to be an American Idol.

Kris Allen, newly crowned popsinger superstar, should know! For those of you who just can't get enough, here are a few lenses packed with photos and videos guaranteed to keep the party going.

Susan52, who is absolutely positively a joy to have around here making lenses on Squidoo, once again successfully merges timeliness with thoroughness in these new lenses on your new American Idol.

Check out:

http://www.squidoo.com/kris-allen-music
http://www.squidoo.com/kris-allen

Rock on.

Widely respected lensmaster and paragon of community giveback, The Fluffanutta has way too many great lenses to pick just one for Lens of the Day.

But today I want to call your attention to his lens My Favourite CSS Tricks on Squidoo.

It's a grab bag of fun (and tasteful) visual goodies for advanced lensmasters to try out on their lenses. More important, though, is his advice on how to add some style and personality to your lens without sliming it with cheap chintz, zazzle and flash that is better left to the Las Vegas strip.

I couldn't say it any better. "Start Simple, Keep it Subtle, Be Sympathetic."

He goes on: "Many lensmasters, when they discover that they can change the fonts, colors and backgrounds of their lenses, tend to get carried away. As a result, some lenses become a riot of colour, with several different styles competing on the same lens. This is often off-putting to the visitors, and will probably have a detrimental effect on sales. It is far better to work with the common format and style of Squidoo, and only use CSS to tweak it to your advantage."

Thanks, Fluff!

www.squidoo.com/css-tricks

It's entirely possible there was a little too much media hype about this dog.

But admit it: learning about the White House dog is kind of irresistible. Especially when he's this cute. He's innocent and nonpartisan and busy chewing someone else's shoes.

Prolific lensmaster ThePartyAnimal has put together another multimedia extravaganza of photos, videos, polls, books, sites -- all about the furry little Portuguese Water Dog who is busy capturing the hearts of the American public.

Two takeaways:

1. Don't be shy to pick and choose and gather, as long as you properly attribute and credit and annotate. Weave together a story on your topic, using the best of your topic.

2. This one's more tactical. Notice how ThePartyAnimal punctuates her lens with recommended lenses for reading -- giving the reader a lot of interesting side roads should he want to dig in more. Done right, it's a good way to take one visitor to one of your lenses, and send him on a journey through many more.

http://www.squidoo.com/barack-obamas-dog

[If you're seeing this on email: You're getting this note because you signed up for Squidoo's Lens of the Day newsletter, which spotlights superstar lenses worth reading and learning from. If you'd rather not, just scroll down to unsubscribe. Easy as pie. Sad as goodbye.]

So, if Wikipedia is the place to go for facts...

And if blogs are usually the place to go for opinions...

And if Amazon or eBay are good places for great products...

And if forums are hotspots for comments and conversations...

Then I think it's fair to say that this lens has the best of all worlds.

It's pretty special to experience history filtered through human interest and passion, then mashed up with other media and recommendations.

That's one of many reasons this Lens of the Day is worth a looksee.

Another is because, well, there's just something romantic about trains.

.
.
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Maybe it's the caboose.

(That's a joke, ladies and gentlemen).

Anyway, enjoy the lens. It's a fan favorite!

http://www.squidoo.com/Great-Western-Railway

This Lens of the Day is truly not to be missed.

I highly recommend you check out Jackie Robinson: An American Hero. A lens rich in history and context, told from a smart, writerly point of view. And certainly an expert display of the lensmaking craft.

But there's nothing I can say to top the dozens of emails I got about this lens over the last few days. Most compelling, perhaps, was the author's own (humble) note about it:

"I wouldn't normally nominate my own lens... But this is special. There's something to celebrate instead of dread on April 15: the breaking of the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947.

It's not just a milestone for sports fans; it paved the way for the civil rights movement and, as MLK later said, "made his job easier". Jackie Robinson didn't just get the chance to play because he was lucky. He was an amazing athlete with a comfortable job in the Negro Leagues, who signed with the Dodgers knowing he would become the central target for white outrage against "uppity blacks" (not the word then used). He handled himself with grace and restraint on and off the field despite death threats, physical and verbal attacks, and unimaginable strain that probably led to his premature death in 1972.

Especially with the election of Barack Obama--an event that probably would've made this strong man cry--I would like to draw more people to this lens to learn a brave man's story.

It's one of my oldest lenses and one of my few charity lenses, donating its earnings to The Jackie Robinson Foundation, which funds education scholarships, professional internships, and leadership training programs for underprivileged youth--needed more than ever in this economy..."

http://www.squidoo.com/jackierobinson

This lens has 3x the coolness of most.

First, well, it speaks for itself: Teaching Your Kids to Cook.

Next: Supercool that this person only has 5 lenses, and has already learned the art of making a great lens. I don't know about you, but I feel a special kind of giddy when I see a newer lensmaster creating something this good.

Third: Cooler still is the interplay between lens and blog and newsletter readership. (Not mine, Reluctant Gourmet's!) Talk about creating a recommendation economy that works.

As Reluctant Gourmet introduces in the lens bio:

"Hi Food Friends. Over 12 years ago I decided "You have to eat, so why not learn to cook and eat well" so I started teaching myself how to cook. Frustrated by cookbooks and magazines that presumed I was a gourmet-cooking expert just because I wanted to eat like one, I created the Reluctant Gourmet website as a "cooking guide for the novice from a novice". Now I help other home cooks become more skilled and confident in their own kitchens."

And, lo and behold, now there's a lens to help Reluctant Gourmet drill down and focus on interesting subsets of the website. Like how to teach your kids to cook.

From the lens intro:

"Every week I receive emails from parents interested in finding cooking and baking classes for their kids. Some are interested in a one time cooking lesson, some want to hold a birthday party, some are looking for a summer cooking camp.

Then there is a group with teenagers who are interested in attending big name culinary arts schools when they graduate from high school and want to see if there are schools offering short programs for young adults to prepare them for getting into these schools.

My first response to all these parents is start by teaching your children to cook at home in your own kitchens. Not only can you teach them many of the basic techniques involved in preparing a meal, you spend some quality time with your child and create memories of a lifetime.

This Squidoo lens looks at the benefits of teaching you kids to cook including understanding foods, self confidence, time management, understanding basic science, creativity and a whole lot more. There are also resources for cookbooks for kids, cookwares and cooking outfits as well a list of schools from around the country offer cooking classes for you children."

http://www.squidoo.com/kids_can_cook

Like I said: cool.

Every weekday (or nearly that) Squidoo's Editor in Chief, Megan Casey, highlights a lens that stands out from the crowd, a lens that is unique in topic, approach, personality, tools or timing. Or, you know, just a lens that made her guffaw a little.

If you find a lens you'd like to submit for LotD consideration, send it to us here.

Looking for some help and advice on your own lenses? Swing by SquidU, where tons of smart lensmasters hang out.