Squidoo.com Hits Record Traffic Levels, Leaves Beta

Squidoo.com, the fast-growing directory site, leaves beta this week. After only four months of public beta testing, the site features more than 22,000 lenses built by more than 12,000 users (called lensmasters) -- passionate people sharing great content and context online.

A lens is one person's expert view of a particular topic. Squidoo lenses are made from building blocks (called modules) featuring Amazon, blogs, news feeds, Google maps, CafePress, eBay, hundreds of online merchants, and even images from Flickr. With lenses on everything from cookies and knitting to web technology and World of Warcraft, Squidoo lets surfers find exactly what they're looking for -- without wading through millions of pages to find the good stuff.

Megan Casey, editor in chief of the site, said, "The strength of Squidoo is that it's an open ecosystem of lensmasters and surfers. A lensmaster gets to -- for free -- create a page with his own expert take on a particular topic. The surfer, then, gets hand-built, recommended information, fast -- and in context. Once you find a lensmaster you trust, it's much easier to discover the good stuff you were looking for all along."

Squidoo pays lensmasters a commission on the revenue generated by their pages. Throughout the beta, Squidoo sent 100% of the commission earnings (thousands of dollars) to three charities. Now, most lensmasters have elected to continue sending their commissions to charity, enabling the site to become a potentially significant engine for fundraising. In addition, 5% of the company's gross revenue is donated to charities.

Ken Liffiton, who runs a lens on behalf of the Grameen Foundation USA, said, "We've found Squidoo to be an excellent way to tell the story of an important cause, in our case microfinance, and we're especially pleased to join the list of nonprofits that Squidoo lensmasters can contribute lens revenues to." http://www.squidoo.com/microfinance

Lensmaster Shea Gunther headed up a Green Blogathon in February, using a lens as home base for the event. "We brought together some of the best green bloggers in a feeding frenzy of eco-centric posting, all in the name of a good cause," he said. "Being the Lens of the Day brought a ton of people to the lens (and indirectly to my site). Being able to pull in the RSS feeds from all the bloggers in one place was really valuable." http://www.squidoo.com/green_blogathon/

And blogger Nancy P. Redford wrote, "It could become a very lucrative way to increase traffic to your sites and bring credibility to your name and business." http://www.miriadz.com/blog/?p=256

Last week, Squidoo introduced a module approved by eBay that allows anyone with items for sale on eBay (or anyone else, for that matter) to highlight auction items on their Squidoo lens. Squidoo also debuted a module for users of TypePad, enabling them to easily feature their blogs on their lens (and their lenses on their blog!). And next week, Squidoo is co-sponsoring the first-ever Maker Faire, a convention of hobbyists, crafters and DIY enthusiasts.

Seth Godin, noted blogger and founder of Squidoo said, "We hit 20,000 lenses -- and our millionth visitor -- nine months sooner than we expected. Even cooler, the lenses are of extraordinary quality. It's clear to me that allowing users to be our guides is an idea that's ready for the rest of us."

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