Squidblog

We’re deep in a 2-week experiment with new forms of advertising on lenses.

You’ve probably seen the Glam ad banner by now, as well as some green text link ads on lenses.

There’s good news (some of it is working very well!) and lots of background, philosophy, and detail in this announcement and thread on SquidU, in case you missed it.

And before you worry too much about the (not so gory) details, remember that if you’re not here for the royalties, you can easily opt-out of any of these ads!

Thanks for reading the thread.

And happy 4th.

It’s true.

Squidthemes are coming your way.

Tomorrow we will be releasing new look-and-feel skins or “themes” for your lenses. They’ll work much like Gmail themes do, where each theme uses the same basic page structure but gives you the option to choose from nifty new style choices.

We’re starting off light and easy with just a handful of themes and will be adding more over time. In the first release you can expect to see themes named:

• Highlighter
• EasyStreet
• MomentofZen
• PurplePeopleEater
• The Professor
• Paintball
• GoneCamping
• Default theme *

* The brilliantly named “Default theme” (hah) is in fact our new Max lens style, as I previewed to you earlier. All lenses will start out with this new Default theme. From there you can switch over to whatever color themes you like.

My personal favorite? Check out the Highlighter. It’s pure and cool and to the point and very slightly geeky.

We’ll let you know tomorrow when themes are live!

We are happy to say the the Squidoo Charity Fund raised over $4,000 last month AND 90 other charities raised close to $3,000.

Wow! That’s not small change at all!

The Squidoo Activists nominated that $500 of the Squidoo Charity Fund be donated to Randy Pausch’s Alice Project in his memory.  Thank you all for making it possible.

Boy oh boy do we have some active Activists!

They ran a great bake sale to raise money and awareness for charity. Joan4 won lens of the day for her Congo Square and$100 will be donated to Joan4’s charity of choice, Heifer International.

This week we are on to Virtual Concerts.  If I wanted to raise money for my favorite charity, you bet your bottom dollar I’d ask U2 to play a benefit concert!

Make a lens on your favorite group. Set the proceeds to charity. Ask an Activist to have a look. They are in charge of nominating our winner who will get LoTD and $100 to their favorite charity.

That rocks!

There sure are a lot of great lensmasters out there! Amazing things can happen when we put our heads together, just look at the Giant Squids.

One great offshoots of the Superhero contest was that so many great people stood up and took the lead, paid attention and participated and made a name for themselves. They are now our Squidoo Activists!

First project to raise money for charity? Squidoo is hosting a virtual bake sale!

Show off your favorite kitchen equipment. Get some tips on running a real bake sale. Make a lens about your favorite cookie recipe for charity.  All for charity!

All the fun, none of the fat.

Only 15 days to go before the Giant Squid admissions deadline.

Stand up, shake out your legs, eat some peanuts, and get ready for some exciting final innings.

Here are a few hints for making the grade:

1. Focus on quality first. Really. That may sound counterintuitive for a program with a 50 lens cost of admission, but it’s true. Because it’s not just 50 lenses… it’s 50 GREAT lenses. The more great lenses you make, the easier (and more addicting) the rest will become. Instead of spreading yourself too thin, focus on making lenses you’re proud of, lenses that are useful to your readers and worth engaging with and sharing. Sure, getting the Giant Squid recognition and perks sooner than later are more than worth the extra cup of coffee and the late night cram session, but hey, there’s always September.

2. BUT–do yourself a favor, and don’t be a perfectionist. On the web, being a perfectionist can mean you never publish. And never get found. And never discover your tribe of interested followers. Don’t wait. Start. Make a lens about something you’re interested in, and publish it. Little by little every day. Go ahead and tell people when a section of it is still under construction, in chrysalis, half-baked. That’s okay. You’re human. They are too.

3. Feel free to ask your friends for help. What do they like about your lenses? What would they add? Believe me, it helps.

4. Remember, it all adds up. Faster than you might think.

5. You’ve got your own personal cheerleader in Bonnie Diczhazy (lensmaster BDKZ). She rounded up a whole gaggle of ideas for helping you get to 50 lenses by June 30th. And is even offering some direct one-on-one mentoring help. Check it out.

We’re working like mad to get the new dashboard ready for you guys.

In the meantime, read what the Giant Squid testers are saying.

And take a sneak peek of a few screens for yourselves!

There are people who might sell you software that ‘automates’ the generation of lenses. This is a violation of the Squidoo TOS, and we’re right now working on code that will make the software ineffective. If you build lenses this way, it will lead to them being deleted, and perhaps, your account being closed.

If we partner with someone to create a lens builder helper that’s approved, we’ll tell you on this blog and on our site. Otherwise, save your money and your lenses and avoid software like this. We want to make it easy to build great lenses, but we don’t want the site filled with junk.

UUU… useful, unique and updated. That’s the goal.

Thanks!

Thanks for your patience. We forgot to feed the gerbils. It’s fine now.

So sorry… we’ve been down for a bit, and we’re working on it as hard as we can.

Hope to be up this morning, asap.

Thanks for your patience.