Dear Squidfolk - My Experiences with Squidoo so Far
(Tone: read with your tongue partly in cheek)
Dear Squidfolk
You asked for feedback and here it comes, round 2! (Round 1 here)
It's been less than a week since I became a Squidoo lens master. Master? Clearly, I'm no master, especially when I turn on the old computer on a Sunday morning to find this, um, very friendly email. Hello, Nancy White
Now signing a note that is, at best, neutral, with "sincerely" does not jive for me. Yes, this is just one person's reading. But then after tone, I'm thinking, when did they tell me about this rule?
As Lensmaster for the Squidoo Lens 'Communities of Practice', you are receiving this notification that your Lens will be deleted in 4 days unless you improve it.
Improved lenses are defined as lenses that have been published with two or more modules; unimproved lenses are deleted automatically after 7 days.
Sincerely,
The Squidoo Team
I tried to find on the site where this rule is explained to me. I mean, it makes sense, but dontcha think it would be a good idea to make sure lens owners know this before they go signing up for lenses? I started scanning through the FAQ and terms of service, and I can't find anything that explains this. The "rules" section is all about what you can't do, not what you are expected or required to do. Nor can I find the "Beta Guidelines" nor the "Beta Blog" mentioned in the FAQ. I tried searching for it... no luck. Old copy? There is an "Official Squid Blog."
In the how to section, the most I could find was this "Click on "Create a lens" anywhere in the site. This will take you to our LensBuilder. It takes about 2 minutes to set up a lens. Once you've created it, you can come back and work on it bit by bit to make it really great." Bit by bit, eh? But within 7 days.
This leads me to my first suggestion. Give us a page that puts all this information in one place.
Second suggestion, I'd like a lensmaster login on the front page. Save me a click, ok? I'm lazy. Well, no, I'm not lazy, but I hate to waste time. Blogging fills that part of my life very well!
Third, tell me more clearly what you expect from me. Maybe after a person sets up a lens, you email them this information so if they missed something in the fine print (and that's easy to do) they have a second chance.
Four, talk nicer to me, ok? That email sounds more like a threat than encouragement. We're in this together, right? You need me, and I need you. If my lens is going to disappear, can you give me some pointers to suggestions on how to improve if before I decide that this game is no fun and I don't want to play? Can you point to a great lens to inspire me? I'd be much more likely to do something.
Finally, my last suggestion totally a personal quibble and I know I'm risking ridicule to even mention it. It simply reflects the value I put in "real coops." I'd suggest some text changes to this part of the FAQ because I think you are using cute text (granola on the floor) at the expense of an important idea. The coop form is a very specific legal form with a great deal of value to many communities in the US and has an even more long standing meaning across the world. I had to also wonder that you guys, having read you for a long time, would associate yourselves with the term "old-fashioned corporation." That could mean many things to many people. This may be a case where direct writing rather than cute would serve your transparency and intents better.Squidoo: The FAQ: "DOES SQUIDOO MAKE A PROFIT?
So as a wrap up before I delve into the world of contemplating Christmas cookies, if you want me to give more, make your expectations a bit clearer up front. This give me a better way to determine if I have the ability to contribute in a truely cooperative manner. I like the idea behind Squidoo. I think you have a tremendous start. But I'd suggest that how we interact with each other is critical to your bottom line.
Yes, Squidoo is an old-fashioned corporation, with real employees and investors. We're not legally organized as a co-op, not in the sense that we've got granola all over the floor or that we are owned and controlled by volunteers. Instead, we've structured the organization so that we're in a partnership with our lensmasters. It's a co-op in the sense that the more you give, the more you get.
[Edit, Monday at 1:49pm PST - Please read the comments, which I know on Blogger don't show up without a click or two. Heath from Squidoo had some good info.]
Categories: squidoo, coop, cooperation
posted by Nancy White at 11:49 AM
8 Comments:
7 days????? Aye yi yi. Thanks for the info. I was half heartedly boycotting squidoo 'cause I didn't like Godin's sales pitch masquerading as a keynote at Blogon but had planned on getting in there and creating some lenses eventually. But seven days? I am afraid I don't have the time available to commit to that sort of thing right now so squidoo is going to drop further down on my "to play with" list.
I played with Squidoo. Built two lenses and then couldn't really find a reason to continue. If I don't "get it" then I guess that it's not worth my time (or I'm really, really slow). Haven't received the "nice" e-mail that you did, but I'm sure it's on the way.
Basically, it just seemed way too easy and didn't allow for any depth (of course, I too, could be out of my depth). Personally, I'm sticking to bloggin'.
Thanks for your thoughtful response, feedback, and ideas, Nancy.
Egg on our faces! The email alert you posted to your blog was sent accidentally yesterday while a team member was testing some new back-end administration tools. The text it contains was a placeholding draft and doesn't accurately represent what might happen if a lensmaster leaves a lens fallow for a long period of time -- or how we'll reach out to them. (We're pretty embarrassed that draft got released into the wild.)
We'll consider your suggestions and recommendations seriously as we continue to improve the public beta version of Squidoo. There's a lot of good stuff in the post, and I really appreciate your feedback. Feel free to contact me directly if I can help further!
Heath
"The text it contains was a placeholding draft and doesn't accurately represent what might happen if a lensmaster leaves a lens fallow for a long period of time -- or how we'll reach out to them."
Well that's good to know, but I wonder what constitutes "letting a lens fallow for a long period of time". I understand the need to weed out the inactive and support that sort of weeding. It would definitely be good to have the definition of fallow for a long period of time on the site and easy to find.
Good of Heath to post. I like that.
We'll be sure to let lensmasters know, for sure! And we'll do our best to make the alert and response process less surprising.
Thanks for posting, Nancy. I've recently posted about Squidoo at my blog, but didn't get to the "we're going to delete one of your lenses soon" and "no, we're not really" emails.
Heath very quickly commented on my post of today. I'm impressed to see that he responded quickly and constructively to your more critical post.
Hello Nancy, your posting made me curious and I tried Squidoo. What it does is bring together a set of theme blogs, with limited ways to create content and layout. Which is not a bad idea, and could help people to create a blog without the fuss of having to do editing and lay-out work. And the blogs have Google Ads and Amazon links, which means that the proceeds will land at Squidoo. And where does that leave the blogger, the lens owner? He's the volunteer content manager working to help Squidoo pay its bills, through the kick-back of clicked ads. A 'coop'? That's a bit of an insult to any serious coop. The Squidoo coop does not even tell you how much of the ad revenues are shared with the lense owners. Call that coop? Hummm, must be a coop because Squidoo uses 'volunteer'content owners. Squidoo should make explicit where the lense owners stand, rights-wise and revenue-sharing wise... Best wishes, Olaf.
Olaf,
The questions you ask regarding the nature of the Co-Op are answered in the Squidoo Terms of Service:
http://www.squidoo.com/pages/tos
They handled the issues and questions you bring up to my satisfaction, though I'll be the first to admit my standards are modest.
-Adam
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