Squidblog

Boy have we been busy.

Today marks the release of a major Squidoo update, the first of many to reflect a new focus on making Squidoo a fun platform for lensmasters to interact.

Introducing Squidcasting

The big news is a feature we call Squidcasting. We know how frustrating it is to burn the midnight oil completing a new lens or doing a major update to an existing one, only to resort to emailing friends one by one to brag about your hard work. With Squidcasting, now you have a way to send an update to all your fans at once.

Here’s how it works…

1. Go to your Dashboard and click the “Cast” link for your lens.
2. Type a short title and message to send to your fans.
3. Within minutes, your Squidcast gets transmitted.

Squidcasts are received by…

• Subscribers to your lens RSS feed.
• People who favorite your lens.
• People who join your fan club (more on this in just a second).

You can use Squidcasting to…

• Let your fans know that you’ve published a new lens or updated an existing one.
• Remind your fans of an upcoming newsworthy event.
• Announce the winner of a contest.
• Ask for help or coordinate a group effort.
• Many other possibilities—get creative!

Still curious? Learn more about Squidcasting.

So what’s a fan club?

Fan clubs are another exciting new feature. Just like favoriting a lens, fan clubs allow you to favorite a lensmaster. From then on you’ll receive Squidcasts on your My Favorites page from every lensmaster whose fan club you belong to.

But how will I find the time…

We’re betting Squidcasting and fan clubbing will keep you busy, so we’re inventing new ways to help make lensmastering a little bit easier. The first of these new enhancements is the ability to approve pending Guestbook and Duel comments straight from your Dashboard. You’ll still get notification emails (if you have them turned on), but this aggregate view makes comment approval a less tedious process.

What else?

We’re focusing much of our energy on making the Squidoo platform more stable. Today’s release includes over a dozen bug fixes, including some very annoying ones related to the Intro module. To make Squidoo fly, we’re also beefing up our servers and tweaking our code for maximum performance.

Finally, if you haven’t visited SquidU lately, you’re definitely missing out. Kimberly and Glen (both expert lensmasters) have been diligently adding new how-to articles to explain some of the finer points in mastering Squidoo. Just visit the SquidU homepage for a list of the latest articles in the Learning Library.

That’s about all for today’s SquidUpdate. Thanks for tuning in!