Squidblog

I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback about the NYT article last week. A few people, though, are a little befuddled that it was filed as an e-commerce report.

Q: “Is Squidoo, then, all about the money?”

Shortest answer: No.

Less short answer: Right now, 80% of you should think of the money as a perk, like free coffee or a $2-off coupon. A bonus on top of something you were going to do anyway. The other 20% of you, like nonprofits and entreprenurial types and online salesfolks and our featured affiliates, should think about the money potential in aggregate. What happens when your members or customers create 1,000 lenses all sending their royalties to your organization, and all point to your product or idea? Then the payout becomes a compelling possibility. But even then, it’s still only part of what we’re all doing here.

Not at all short answer: Our society (and our site) is unabashedly action-based. Action can often mean buying and selling something. But action can also mean forming a political opinion, or emailing a cookie recipe to a friend, or learning more about autism. Action can mean making miniature crochet bears for fun, or it can mean sending more traffic to your eBay auctions.

And so the important thing here is what causes the action. What is the secret sauce behind every interaction? What’s the nudge, the lighted fire, the springboard, the jumpstart?

9 times out of 10, it’s recommendation. Recommendation is the fundamental, LCD of all the stuff you’re hearing a lot about these days: user-generated content, personalized search, filters…. Recommendation is what web 2.0 is all about.

Of course, the best recommendations are authentic and personal and trusted, which makes it easy for you to take action on them. That’s why we invite passionate people to make lenses on topics they know or care a lot about.

Some of our best lenses are about spreading ideas, awareness for issues, sharing advice, giving hobbyist how-to’s. Basically, great content from passionate communities. Recommendation from real people.

And yes, in the case of our commerce or fundraising lenses, the better the recommendation, the more people trust it, the more action taken, the more money you could make.