Feb 8

Announcing Localisation Support

Today we’re releasing our first attempt at providing support for non-US data formats. Specifically, we’re working to account for the differences in the ways numbers, currencies, and dates are displayed throughout the world. Here’s what you need to know:

  1. We make an attempt to determine your locale based on the language settings of your browser.
  2. Lensmasters can correct or override these settings in the new “Locale & Timezone Settings” portion of the My Profile page.
  3. Having trouble with the way numbers, currencies, or dates are displaying in your language? Please help us correct these problems by providing your feedback.
  4. The default locale setting is “en_US”. If you experience trouble with formatting in your language and need to switch back to the way things were previously, use this setting.
  5. Localisation support is BETA. Currently custom number and currency formatting only exist on a few pages, primarily the My Lenses page. If this release goes well we hope to improve and expand localisation support over time.
  6. For all you Americans, localisation is how they spell localization in many other parts of the world :)

Feb 8

Hot Forum Topic

Discussion taking place now:

How do I get people to buy from my lens?

Feb 2

Is your Charity Partnership Secure?

Hi Squidoo Charity Partners!

As you know, becoming a Squidoo Charity Partner takes some work. There’s getting to know Squidoo, developing a lens, setting up a PayPal account, and spending countless hours asking volunteers to create lenses for you. After all that work, we want to make sure you’re able to continue to succeed.

Maintaining your Charity Partnership is a short lens detailing what we need in order to keep your partnership in good standing. The list is short; a few items are:

1. reliable contact info
2. proper PayPal address
3. your participation with an official “about us” lens

Since you’re reading this, the “sign up for our Charity Network News” part is taken care of.

These are all things we need in order to keep you signed on as a Charity Partner. If you’re unsure of what you need, or have changes to report, send a note to charity at squidoo.com

Thanks for your help!

Jan 30

Teach your friends to Squidoo, Win an iPad

All the details are right here.
The giveaway starts now.
Runs through March 17 2010.
May the force be with you.

Jan 29

Themes and style updates on the way

Early next week you might notice some minor display changes in lens themes and front door lens designs. The bulk of the updates will be noticeable in the headers and backgrounds of the lenses.

If you hear the words style and change and quake in terror, quake not.

This is cleanup work, simplification so that we can more speedily release new themes, new sidebar tests, new front doors, and best: so the lenses will load just a tiny bit faster. None of the layout specs are changing, your content isn’t moving, and none of your modules or custom code will be affected. There’s nothing you even need to do. (Except maybe try out that zippy new Valentine’s Day theme we released!)

You can see an indication of what kind of changes we’re addressing by viewing a few side-by-side comparisons below. Click each thumbnail for a larger view.

The default lens theme, before and after:

The “Go Camping” lens theme, before and after:

The SquidFlix movie review project lens style, before and after:

Jan 28

10 Questions With Seth Godin (the Original Squid)

We channeled questions we hear from lensmasters every day and unleashed them on our founder. Essentially what a lot of people wonder is “I’ve made a lens. Now what?” Here is a short interview with Seth about what to *do* once you’ve created those masterpiece lenses. Hint: Diving in and being fearless is important. Publishing and shipping are critical. But after that, waiting for readers and fame and traffic and love isn’t the answer.

1. I’ve written the best lens I know how. It’s niche, it’s timely, it’s got a ton of unique content, personal stories and places for people to participate and give feedback. I’ve spent hours on the lens but it is getting absolutely no traffic. What can I do?

SETH: My rule is “first, ten.” What happens when you expose this, by hand, to ten people you like and trust (and that like and trust you?). If the ten are moved, amused or motivated, they’ll each tell four people and the next thing you know, you’re on your way. But if the ten say, “that’s nice,” then it’s not as good as you thought it was.

2. Squidoo HQ is constantly teaching us how to make masterpiece lenses and great content, but I can’t feel that I’m missing a step. Why doesn’t my remarkable content spread?

SETH: Spreading ideas is more than just being really good. It’s about leading a tribe, using your social network as a lever to do work for them, to connect them, to create ideas that they WANT to spread. You don’t need a lot of people, but those people need to be motivated to spread the word as well. The tribe might be a few bloggers who count on you for insights or reciprocation. It might be your church. There are people everywhere and they are waiting for ideas they should or could spread.

3. What three things should I do immediately after hitting the Publish button on a new lens?

SETH: Are there ten bloggers that you reference, link to, comment on and engage with? If not, there should be. If there are, then let them know when you make a new lens. Or build similar relationships with people on Facebook or twitter or on your own blog.

4. I have a lens that is one month old. When it was new it got a fair amount of traffic and comments but now there’s nothing. How can I renew interest and attention to this lens?

SETH: If you were one of the visitors, would YOU go back? If not, what would it take? How can you create personal interactions, promote individuals and their ideas, create news, highlight new Amazon products, generate and maintain debates…

5. People always talk about getting the word out, using Facebook or Twitter or email or whatever. But at some point doesn’t getting the word out too much turn into spam? When do you know if you’ve overstepped your bounds and people don’t want to hear from you anymore?

SETH: When it’s about you, not them. When they don’t ask “where have you been?” When they don’t respond…

Find a regular schedule. Anticipated, personal and relevant messages always outperform spam.

6. I really don’t understand how to use Twitter to spread the word about my lenses. Can you give me 5 hypotheticals of what I could do?

SETH: Why will people choose to follow you?

Book picks
Contests, spotlights
Interesting debates, polls, quizzes
Newsworthy analysis
Personalities

Imagine that the Apple iPad is announced or Tiger Woods quits golf or there’s a big stock market adjustment. It’s one thing to write a sentence or two, but what happens if you use a lens to dive deeper, to highlight links and pictures and tweets or debates? Won’t there be people who want to be updated when you do that?

7. Same goes for Facebook actually. My friends don’t care if I just updated my Squidoo lens. So how am I supposed to get them interested in visiting it?

SETH: I’m not kidding here: get new friends.

You can either make lenses your friends are in to (mostly personal and personality stuff) or you can find friends who like the lenses you want to build.

Most of the people who read my blog don’t like ME. They like what I write about, because I write about THEM.

8. Are blogs outdated, and am I wasting my time running a blog about Squidoo and Squidoo lenses and tips for making them? It seems like everyone is too much in a hurry to read a blog.

SETH: “Everyone” is a group you will never be able to reach. Don’t worry about everyone. Worry about just enough someones.

9. Megan is always talking about how we should all play “Editor in Chief” of our favorite niche topics, but I still don’t get it. What do I get out of spotlighting OTHER people’s lenses?

SETH: Once again, the way you need to act on behalf of people with many choices. People will follow you and listen to you when you start acting for them, as opposed to for you.

10: I’ve been on Squidoo now for a few months and I have dozens of high ranking lenses but not a lot of sales or traffic. How long should it take for me to get traffic/sales results?

SETH: I think generating revenue is a byproduct of two things: 1. build a tribe, an audience, people who trust you, and 2. build lenses that lend themselves to commerce (if that’s your thing). If a lens is all about buying a book, you’re going to sell a book. If you picked something like the Dilbert collection, which was marked down over Christmas from $80 to $30, you might have sold ten or twenty. That’s a decent return for one month for one lens.

Bonus Question! Your new book Linchpin is great, but how does it apply to a regular old Squidoo lensmaster?

SETH: Be brave. Don’t ask for instructions. Do things that frighten you. Make connections. Do art first, commerce second. Squidoo is a platform, just waiting for you to invent bold new ways to use it.

Go! Make something happen.

Jan 22

It’s Friday and we’re Feelin’ Fine!

Ahh, the weekend is almost here! Before you pack up and head home, check out these conversations, happening right now at SquidU:

- an eBay meeting near you
- lensmaster = instant expert
- guestbook glitches
- guestbook spam and Google
- how often do you overhaul lenses?
- promote your “green” lenses
- Zazzlers support Haiti relief

Enjoy your weekend!

Jan 20

Maintaining your Partner Charity Info

Hello Partner Charities!

As a respected non-profit, you understand what it takes to become an officially recognized charity and maintain your public image. You also understand the challenges donors face when giving. They want to make sure their donations are going to the right place, and you want to use them as efficiently as possible.

On Squidoo, we have a few measures in place to make sure our new charity partner applicants fit the bill for official charities. But what about after a charity is selected? What do you need to do in order to maintain your partnership?

Maintaining your Charity Partnership is a must-read that explains what we need to have in order to keep you on our list, plus a few other details about how you can boost your activity on Squidoo and earn more donations for your important projects.

While you’re at it, why not forward this email to another charity officer or volunteer? Two sets of eyes keeping track of new Squidoo events will ensure you’ll never miss a thing!

Have fun!

Jan 20

Icky Ads Gone for Good!

Thank to you everyone who provided links and screenshots for the ads that were causing virus and malware popup alerts. We’re happy to announce that the agency responsible has pulled the ad responsible for the problem and has put new measures in place to prevent these types of advertisers from getting into the system in the future.

To learn more about what malware is and what it does to your computer, visit Malware on Wikipedia and Trojan Removal Tool.

Thanks for your help sending in screenshots and links to help us get rid of these nasty ads!

Jan 18

Icky Ad Problem

Hi Lensmasters,

Over the last few days we’ve received complaints that opening certain lenses causes virus software to be alerted and the lens to stop loading. First of all, we recognize that this is totally unacceptable, and we’re looking into it ASAP. We also need your help tracking it down.

Since this only happens occasionally, we’re pretty sure it’s due to an ad that’s been placed on the lenses by one of our ad companies. As with any ad, in order for our ad companies to find it, we need screenshots of what the ad looks like and the URLs that the ad directs to. If you’re able to capture either of these, please send your findings to squidhelp at squidoo.com. Thanks for the help!

(And if you’re finding other icky ads, like popups, ads that cover your screen, or inappropriate ads, please also be sure to send in a screenshot and URL. Since ads rotate, the lens they appear on won’t always offer clues. Thanks!)

Quick! What's Squidoo?

Squidoo is the popular publishing platform and community that makes it easy for you to create "lenses" online. Lenses are pages, kind of like flyers or signposts or overview articles, that gather everything you know about your topic of interest – and snap it all into focus. It's a supersimple, fun and powerful way to share your interests, build your online identity and credibility, and connect with new readers and friends. It's all free, and you could even earn a royalty for charity or yourself!

Get Started!

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