Squidoo & "Everyone's an Expert, Seth Godin

Everyone's an Expert (about something), #3 and final free ebook in a series by Seth Godin

Hold on to your hat - Seth's promoting something in this one. Yes, he has an agenda, but that makes it no less interesting, insightful, or a quick/fast/easy read.

On the Internet, today's version, Search Engines don't do a great job. Yes, they are pretty fantastic at finding things, BUT, we are not usually searching for something, at least not initially. When we first start researching a subject, we are on "a quest to make sense." There is no "right" answer to our search, and besides, the top hits are usually trying to sell us something. We might be interested in buying, but not UNTIL what we are researching makes sense to us.

Let's say I decide I absolutely must have a "three handled moss covered family grudunza." I don't know much about them, except Dr. Suess' Cat in the Hat seemed quite fond of his, and I've been convinced! Well, I'm not going to buy, no matter what Google et all return to me. I want information first! After some research, perhaps soul searching, and maybe balancing my checkbook, I might be ready to buy.

Now if My Uncle Thermador says, "Nephew, you need to buy a ZXy12.3 Jr three handled moss covered family grudunza with the lint free option," I might be able to skip the "quest for sense." Or if my agent, the unimitable Wendy Keller says, "just get the hot pink one made by CDSCorp and you can't go wrong - it's reliable and your style," I'm also all set.

Word of mouth - it solves my problem! But do we really have word of mouth on the Web? Well, sort of, but not in any organized and easily accesible way.

Squidoo is a company with an answer: "Lenses." Lenses are simple websites built by opinionated experts (any other kind) like Uncle Thermador that don't contain much material, but which have links to LOTS of useful information. For example, a Lense on three handled moss covered family grudunzas (let's just call them THMCFGs), would have links to all the sources the Lense's author would think are most valuable on THMCFG. A Lense is just a simple Website, just like a Blog is just a simple Website. A Lense has a specific format and layout, just as blogs are all pretty similar in format and layout.

If I find a Lense, and like it, as I like and trust Uncle Thermador and Agent Wendy Keller, I probably won't even follow many of the links as "word of mouth will take over."

Here is a sample Lense, of the Bald One himself, Seth Godin.
Here are a few more examples.

Why create Lenses??? Many reasons and I'll just list a few:

1) Because you are PASSIONATE. You love THMCFGs, or whatever, and want to share your enthusiam.

2) You like money. You can run Google ads, affiliate links, etc. on your Lense or your collection of a few hundred Lenses for profit.

3) You want to promote something - like yourself (Ted Demopoulos is cool. Check out these links), your company (hire demop.com - we rule), your book (Blogging for Business will make you more intelligent and attractive), etc.

Why Squidoo? Why not just create a simple website as described above, and if it's a great resource on THMCFG or whatever, the search engines will (eventually) rate it highly and send traffic your way. Why Squidoo? One reason; they make building Lenses easy.

Check out the eBook here, and report back please.

In beta now, and yes I did sign up.