Going on Six

In a couple of weeks I'll celebrate my sixth anniversary here on Squidoo.  Every year I look back and say wow, what a difference a year makes!

I was just looking at one of my old lenses and noticed that it was linked to this post where I was excited about having made over $50 that month from Squidoo.  Wow, what a difference five years make!

Back then I could only dream that a very part-time venture would become a very fun full-time way to earn a living. 

Wow, can't wait 'til next year!

Content Rules

If you write on Squidoo then you're surely aware of the recent conversations revolved around making our lenses personal with just the right ratio of affiliate links to unique content.  Keyword content factors in as well - no one wants to be punished for keyword stuffing, especially when it's unintentional. 

Here's a conversation about Zazzle content on our lenses and how to make our Zazzle-centric lenses acceptable to both Squidoo and to the search engine powers-that-be.  These Zazzle lens tips can be applied to the rest of our sales-oriented lenses and product reviews as well.  And it's not just Squidoo and the search engines, it's our readers that we should be concerned about.  If we don't offer unique, useful, interesting content to them, then we're not doing our job very well. 

No matter how you stand on the great Squidoo debate these days, it's hard to deny that the old maxim of "content is king" still drives e-commerce and, really, online publishing in general.  I think that's the bottom line in all this.  What do you think?

Food for Thought

In case you missed Seth's blog post today, here's a link.

Us vs Us

That so says it all and really has me thinking about the tribes to which I belong.

If there's a member of any tribe, anywhere, online or off, who doesn't get it, then chances are they'll just never get it.

The Quick Brown Fox

Look at the picture I came across today.  Isn't it great?  It reminds me of ninth grade typing class, where I fell in love with typing.  In fact, a few years ago I actually wrote a lens about the history of the typewriter that included a tribute to my typing teacher and a mug with "The quick brown fox" phrase on it.

Does this phrase bring back memories to you, too?  How fast can you type it? Go ahead, give it a try!

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