Squidblog

Yup, Squidoo’s growing. Fast.

Which means I get to make sure the site and servers eat their veggies and stay strong.

I’ll be running a few major server upgrades tomorrow morning (Saturday, 4/27/07) between the hours of 7 am and 11 am EST. During this time Squidoo and SquidU may be down. So, go have a cup of coffee, and come back soon!

Here’s a neat writeup on 5 ways hotels can increase their presence online. Flickr, MySpace, Squidoo… nobrainers for telling your story. Carolyn suggests getting your concierge, bartenders and wedding planners in on the fun. How many staffers can you turn into celebrities? Why don’t they have lenses? You know: personality goes a long way.

It works for Birders too. Type “adirondack birding” into Google. This lens is the #2 result. And it’s in hot pursuit of #1.

We’ve been working with the International Rescue Committee and their Stop Violence Against Women outreach. And today they invited tens of thousands of their supporters to lend their voices to lenses.

The IRC gets it. Does your organization?

“This issue, we’re featuring a site called Squidoo. Squidoo is quick, fun, and totally free. In fact, we think it’s the best 10 minutes you’ll spend this week.

What’s great about Squidoo is that when you build your lens, you’ll be helping IRC in two important ways. First, you’ll be driving traffic to the IRC Web site. Second, each lens you build has the ability to generate money to support the IRC mission. The more lenses you build, the more traffic you’ll generate. The more traffic you generate, the more money you’ll raise!”

There’s been a lot of talk about stumbling lately.

First there’s the rumor about eBay (or Google or AOL) buying StumbleUpon.

Then there’s this excellent overview from one passionate Stumbler about how he uses the tool and what he gets out of it.

What’s the big deal? Why, discovery, of course. Surprise. Exploration.

Relevance, yes. But without expectation. Similarity, but with a twist of the unanticipated.

Interestingly, Squidoo last week introduced an experimental new feature that pays homage to these same ideas. It’s an “I’m feeling lucky/ Stumble Upon/ Hit me again” feature that we’re referring to as Go Fish.

You can see it in the image below, or on Lori’s cool lens about Punk Hairdos. It’s the big blue arrow. When you click it, you see another highly ranked lens in the same category. And then another. And another.

In just one clickstream I went from Punk Hair, to Trailer Park Boys, to The Online Paper Airplane Museum to Celebrity Tattoos.

(Hey, where did my last 10 minutes go!)

The Stumbling principle says wonderful things about our culture of curiosity. Look around. Discover. Share your journey with a friend. And so the web goes.

If your lens is in this network, you could benefit from the proximity effect. And if your lens is also in the StumbleUpon network, multiple that x2. If your lens is tagged on delicious, multiply again.

It’s not so hard to get found. Sometimes you just have to drop some breadcrumbs along the way.

Okay, so you know that a photo is worth 1,000 words. But $1,000?

Yup. Earlier this week, we announced a photo contest in conjunction with VolunteerMatch called Kindness in Focus.

Here’s how it works:

1) You send in great photos that capture moments of everyday kindness
2) The community votes on their favorites
3) The two people who submitted the best pictures win $1,000 each, to donate to the nonprofit of their choice.

For all the details on how to enter, check out www.kindnessinfocus.com

But hurry - you’ve only got a few weeks left!

Hey, Kathryn says we’re all the rage.

Authors, she’s got some good tips for you over there.

“To be seen on the Internet, and to promote your books, CDs, and other products, you have make friends online, and become involved in a network of like-minded people… The concept of the online social network is all the Internet rage. Where blogs allow website owners to add content and promote various products and ideas, involvement in a social networks help one target a specific audience and broaden exposure in a relevant environment.”

eBay Live is in Boston this year. June 14-16.

And the SquidTeam will be there!

Why? Well, because of you, that’s why.

Because of people like Randy Smythe.
Because of the hundreds of tremendous eBay lenses here.
Because a lens is a terrific way to introduce yourself and your story and give people 10 reasons they should buy from you.
Because a lens can help you go deeper than a single store or auction and share your personal story, design inspirations, and background.
Because you can reach a new audience for your products, from pajamas to Maruca handbags.
Because a lens makes it easy to share your expert opinion and valuable insight with fellow eBayers.
Because you can point to great auctions and earn a royalty for charity.

And lots of reasons that the smartest powersellers will come up with on their own!

So really, we’re just going to eBay live to see what you’re all up to. And see how we can help.

It is often said that successful companies almost always wind up reinventing themselves and heading in an entirely different direction from where they started. Squidoo has been out of beta for about a year, and we’re ready to do just that.

We’ve seen just how crucial of a role collaboration can play on the Web. So in response to the countless requests we’ve received since launch, we’re going to make each and every one of our 100,000+ lenses editable by the public—in essence, we’re turning lenses into wikis. This may seem like a shock, but consider some of the many benefits wikis have to offer:

1. If someone sees a mistake, they can correct it right away without having to bother you.
2. Opposing viewpoints can be discussed on the same lens, increasing the efficiency with which ideas are spread.
3. Recruit other people to maintain your lenses—and reap the profits.
4. Each lens becomes its own little community—complete with evangelists, trolls, sheep, and everything else that makes a community great.

We’re excited about wikis on Squidoo. We understand that many people have trouble grasping the concept of a “Lens”, which is why we’re naming our new creation “Squwikis”, as we feel that people are much more comfortable with using the wiki approach.

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P.S. Thanks for making it to the bottom of this post. By the way, we think wikis are great, but Squidoo lenses are all about the power of personal recommendation. Lenses give individuals an opportunity to share their very best advice on a topic, and we wouldn’t change that for the world. We hope you’ve enjoyed our April Fools joke!