Squidoo is a similar conferencing site that has a more markedly commercial aim. Founded by Internet and Marketing guru Seth Godin, Squidoo introduces the notion of a “lens” to the blogosphere. On Godin’s new world everyone is an expert is given a lens page, afforded to a “lensmaster” to express a view on a topic he or she cares about. One builds a lens as a kind of advertising beacon, pointing the way to a blog or website, and uses it to increase the public profile. Building a lens increases one’s page rank in Google and spreads the word of one’s blog or website’s existence to a steadily-growing number of discrete Squidoo visitors. Once a lens is created, it gets assigned a lens ranking based on its popularity.
Squidoo is in the beta stage of testing right now, and will not pay royalties until its official launch sometime in 2006. When the launch occurs, Squidoo does intend to pay royalties, after meeting fixed start-up and overhead costs, and after meeting a five per cent charity commitment. Lensmasters will receive a percentage of the revenue derived from Google’s Adsense, based on LensRank and traffic. LensRank will be an automated algorithm, factoring in user ratings, click through rates, frequency of updates, lensmaster reputation, and inbound and outbound links in calculating their ranking. And any product or item sold through Squidoo’s owner-operated lenses will remit half the income received to the lensmaster. Squidoo promises to post financials every quarter and to protect lensmasters from unexpected developmental expenses by capping these. Every individual lens will have a “My Lenses” page attached that projects revenue, updated daily. Squidoo even promises a SquidU arm where lensmasters can visit to learn how to make better and more effective lenses.
Squidoo will doubtless grow more robust with the passage of time. Whether it will have the commercial chops to rival eBay or Amazon is yet to be determined, but Godin does note on the site that nearly three-quarters of a million people are now making their living from eBay, and such a seismic shift in employment from the hierarchy to the horizon can only mean that many competing entities are going to bloom along with the steady penetration of broadband into every home in America and the advanced industrial world.
I’ve made a lens into my world and my book. Check it out!
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