Squidblog

Wow, look at you guys go!

Last week I posted about our new hookup with Animoto.

Since then, ChefKeem went wild making a wonderful how-to lens about the Animoto feature. Seth’s showing off his Tribes presentation. And a bunch more lensmasters are discovering that Animoto is so much more than eyecandy.

If you’ve tried it out on one of your lenses, let me know!

P.S. We’ve also got a brand new video module. At last: put videos on your lens from Revver, Vimeo and Howcast… as well as your tried and true, YouTube. Look for it in the module picker.

Here’s your fortune cookie reminder for the day:

If something sounds like a hustle, it probably is.

There’s plenty of good stuff out there, of course. But if you see an unofficial, offsite Squidoo tool or ebook or blog or automator (yikes) that feels like a hustle to you, you’re welcome to post it here. The community can help you decide what’s kosher or not. And probably, save you lots of time and money.

This.
Is.
So.
Cool.

Through a partnership with Animoto, via Clearspring, you can now add your Animoto slideshow videos to your lenses in a super slick, easy way.

Check out this Animoto “module” on my lens. [Sorry, the lens is kind of a testing lens. Bad form, Megan! But a slideshow of my parrot didn't really belong anywhere else. Yet. :)] Once you guys have better examples to share, I’ll post a few here.

The reason “module” is in “quotes” above is not that I “love” quotes. But because there isn’t an Animoto module, perse. Nothing you’ll find in the module picker. Read on to see how this works.

How to add Animoto videos to your lens:
For the sake of clarity there are a lot of steps here. Don’t be scared away. This is actually quite easy to do.

1. Take some sweet pics with your regular old camera.
2. Go to Animoto.
3. Sign up. It’s super easy. And they’re good people.
4. Create a video. 30 second shorts are free.
5. Upload your pictures, arrange them, pick your music, Go.
6. Animoto combines your pictures into a slideshow like you’ve never seen, matching the tempo of your music.
7. If you don’t like what you get, you can always put your video through their re-editor. No two Animoto videos are ever the same.
8. Now, the part about adding this to your lens.
9. When your video is done, click the “Embed” link (looks like a pushpin icon) in Animoto.

10. On the first screen you will see a Squidoo icon. (Not sure why it looks all crazy pixelated, but oh well). Click it. Follow the prompts.
11. You’ll be asked to login to Squidoo, to pick which lens you want this video to show up on, to title your new module, etc. Go.
12. Show off the latest addition to your lens!

That’s it.

Believe it or not, this question comes up a lot.

Once someone realizes, with hearts in their eyes, that they can earn money by making good pages on Squidoo, their next step is usually to wonder how the money is actually sent.

So I wanted to take 4 minutes to explain how Squidoo uses PayPal to send you cash.

The short answer is: Simple. You set up a PayPal account. We have a PayPal account. We transfer money, in the amount of the royalties you’ve earned, from our account to yours. Then it’s up to you to turn your PayPal money into greenbacks.

The longer answer is perhaps best explained as a list, below.

1. First, read who PayPal is. Yes, they’re trustworthy.

2. Next, go create a free account on PayPal.

3. When signing up there, you’ll be asked to provide an email address. Use one you check regularly. Preferably the same one you use to login to Squidoo. Important! If you want to set up PayPal using a different email address, please make sure you enter it into your Squidoo profile.

4. Tip: If you have a bunch of email addresses that you’d like to associate with your main PayPal account, you can always add them as aliases within PayPal. That way you can receive money someone sends to any of your email addresses.

5. Now on to the fun part, the part where you get money from Squidoo…

6. Every month, your lenses could earn royalties. The royalties come from the ads we run on your pages, as well as any direct sales you’ve made, like through our Amazon, eBay or CafePress modules. Some people make a dollar or two a month. Others make thousands.

7. Toward the beginning of every month, we will add up your royalties, look at your payment settings, and send the money where you’ve told us to. If your payment settings are earmarked to charity, that’s where your money will go automatically. If your payment settings are for cash, that’s when PayPal enters the scenario.

8. On payday, we’ll show you on your Squidoo dashboard how much cash you’ve earned.

9. Shortly thereafter (sometimes a day or two) you will get an email from PayPal. That email will include the amount you’re getting paid, and acts as a confirmation that the money has been transferred to your PayPal account.

10. It’s entirely up to you to make sure that:
a) this email goes to the right place.
b) it doesn’t get stuck in your spam filter.
c) you have all your PayPal account settings working.

11. If you don’t set up your PayPal account and claim your cash within 30 days, it will default back to Squidoo. We then put it into our Squidoo Charity Fund.

12. If you start making money from Squidoo and you don’t have a PayPal account set up yet, don’t worry! You’ll get an email from us, via them, the first time you earn some cash. That email will have info on how to go set up your PayPal account and claim your money.

13. But… Repeat #11 above.

14. Okay, so you’ve gotten that far. You’ve made great lenses, they earned royalties, and you successfully received a monthly payment to your PayPal account. Now what?

15. Now PayPal gives you a bunch of options for “getting” and spending that money. You can move your PayPal money to a bank account. You can request a check from PayPal, for a small processing fee. You can get cash from PayPal out of an ATM. You can shop in a ton of places online and spend your PayPal money there. Plus a few other options that you’ll learn about when you register with PayPal.

16. If you don’t want to mess around with PayPal at all, then please change your Squidoo payment settings to charity.

17. Sorry, we don’t ever pay by check or money order or make any exceptions. PayPal or charity are your two options.

18. So go make lenses. Make them great. The better they are, the more royalties you’ll earn. Then the only question left is: what do you want to buy with your newfound cash?

New feature alert!

We just released the Squidoo HealthCheck tool. Look on your dashboard, in the All Lenses list, and you’ll see a Health link there right next to Edit and Stats and ‘Cast etc.

HealthCheck will let you know how your lens feels today. This tool gives your lens a checkup and indicates when there’s an ailing item worth working on. Is your title too long? Does your intro have an image? If so, is that photo tagged for best findability? Are your tags relevant? Is your lens fresh? Do your modules still have (gasp) default titles? All sorts of good info that should help you nurse your lens to its fullest potential.

Your lens will thank you. The doctor is in.

P.S. Thanks to lensmaster TheFluffanutta, who did much of the l33t programming for us.

Smart marketers know one of the easiest ways to generate buzz about your topic is to tie it to a popularly searched current event. For non-profits concerned about health care, education, the environment, and the economy, that makes now a perfect time to shout out for your cause in three easy steps.

1. Write an article about your cause that focuses on a current hot topic. If you’re building a library, focus on the importance of literacy. If you’re running youth sports programs, talk about self-esteem and life skills for the next generation.

2. Wrap up your article with a call to action. Ask for the donation. Link to the event invite. Show them where to start their Squidoo lens.

3. Examine it for key phrases and words. Publish. Promote.

Tying your promotional efforts to the upcoming election, or any news story, doesn’t require you to choose sides. Millions of people are out there looking for something to become passionate about. Just by passing out the info you’re creating a relevant reason for people to stop and look.

One of the awesome things about the internet is you can do things with and for other people without actually being there. Take for instance teaching someone about computers. Between photos and video and voice, you can show off your digital art techniques or guide someone through a Karazhan raid from the other side of the globe.

And just like donating in real time, you can donate on Squidoo by making a lens for one of our deserving charities. And unlike the fruitcake fundraiser, it runs year round on its own.

October is Computer Learning Month and we’re celebrating by showing off our skills and making a little money for three deserving non-profits. So if you’ve mastered the DVORAK typing system, or are a wizard at setting up a wireless internet router, or developed a sweet new Firefox extension, take 20 minutes to share your knowledge with the world and help those in need.

http://www.squidoo.com/computer-month-for-charity

BTW - did you know you can make any lens shake it’s groove thing for a good cause with the donations module? Have fun!

Live and waiting for you to play with.

1. The first requires a drumroll. It’s the much-requested… Big picture module! A text module that allows for a huge image upload. Officially called “Text with BIG picture” in the module picker. (The old text module with smaller thumbnail photos is still around if you want to keep using that, too).

2. Amazon MP3. Great for music lenses. Make a list of songs and your readers can listen to previews right on your lens. And, of course, click to go buy the download.

3. Amazon Search. This one lets you show the top search results for any keyword in Amazon. Got a pumpkin cookie recipe lens? Show the top 5 results for “EZBake Oven” in Amazon. (Okay you’re probably beyond the EZBake by now. I’m not.) Your readers can then refine the search right on your lens, if they want, and find what they most want to buy. Now, it’s interesting to note that this module is departing from our traditional model of encouraging you to spotlight your single, handpicked, annotated, best personal recommendations. That’s still hands down the best way to go. But sometimes it makes sense to turn your lens into the central jumping off place for buying related stuff, too. And this new module can help with that. Happy holidays.

4. Twitter Search module. In a fit of good timing, Seth just posted about the addiction that is Twitter search on his blog today. The module is an easy way to add this cool feature to your lens.

Seth had a cool post today about this.

What are you working on right now?
What are you going to have done by 7:15 pm before you go to dinner?
What about next Friday, what are you delivering then?
Even harder: What do you have planned for 3 years from now?
Don’t have a plan? Then at least have a vision.

This is another reason we started the Giant Squids program. No, you don’t need our help making 50 amazing lenses. But with a goal to reach for, it gets a little more real. It doesn’t feel quite so vague, or quite so distant.

So: The next Giant Squids deadline is December 31st at 11:59 pm EST. That’s 84 days.

Go.