Squidoo friends

The Squid Calendar – Kab

spirituality — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:17:04 +0000

Squidangel and giant squid top 100 member Kab seems to be everywhere these days. When he’s not helping out new squids become giant squids, or creating lenses of his own, he’s busy with his new blog: The Squid Calendar.

I noticed his blog the usual way… when he featured one of my lenses. In this case my Vegan and Vegetarian quotes, which were featured because of Vegan Month.

I think it’s quite a project this blog: each day there will be lenses relevant to that specific day of the month. 365 days a year. The blog started lated October, so there are as yet about 20 posts. Which is really a lot after all and if he goes on at this pace, there will be many more to come.

Carrie White, Freelance Writer – aka Inks

spirituality — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:27:56 +0000

Inks, aka Carrie White, is a new squidangel, giant squid and recent recipient of her first purple star, and is all in all one of Squidoo’s team players. She’s made several lenses about how to promote your lenses online. To be honest, I think she’s a bit indiscriminate in her advice: she’ll advise any way of building links she comes across. Though perhaps that’s unfair. I seem to remember lenses, that just aren’t there anymore. My advice would be to focus on the ways to get on topic quality links by for instance (linking to her lenses here) getting your lens reviewed or adding your lens to on topic link plexo’s on squidoo. She also has a twttrstrm lens where we can promote, through twitter, our lowest ranking lenses. She also hosts a discussion on what the best promotion methods are.

In addition to all that, she also has two blogs about squidoo. One where she promotes squidoo lenses by others: giving squids a helping hand. the other is, again, about online promotion. Squidalogue Promotion shares the places online where we can blog about, or submit, our lenses.

Last but not least, her personal blog about being a freelance writer. Oh, and I almost forgot: her new blog here at crabbysbeach: Talking Squid.

AdrienneJenkins – giant squid support & soundtracks

spirituality — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:28:08 +0000

Adrienne’s most succesful lenses are devoted to soundtracks, but the lenses that made me feature her here are devoted to squidoo, specifically giant squids. She’s a giant squid already, but up for the Giant Squid Top 100 club in the december 2009 challenge. That’s not her only lens that promotes other people. She’s also featuring some of Squidoo’s most succesful lensmasters (measured by lensrank) and the interview in which Seth Godin gave Giant Squids tips.

She’s also made a lensography of course. She sees herself mostly as a writer, apparently and shares her tips on how to make money writing for Associated Content. In that community too she’s a giver, with a lens about the top 5 content producers on AC.

SherryHolderHunt – art and shoes

spirituality — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:03:51 +0000

Featuring another rocketmom and probable future giant squid: Sherry Holder Hunt. She has some great lenses, but she also gives to her community. Recently she made a lensography with her favorite squidoo help lenses, but she’s also made several lenses featuring her favorite art galleries online. I mean zazzle galleries, Imagekind galleries, water color artists at imagekind, and photography at ImageKind.

She does of course also feature her own art – like photography, decorating plastic eggs, her zazzle showcase and art for toddlers.

One other lens of hers I love is devoted to something totally different: MBT shoes: those shoes with a round sole you rock on…

Boshemia – tackling tricky subjects

spirituality — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:42:41 +0000

What to think of a lensmaster who takes a long hard look at who the boys are who do school shootings, who writes about parents talking about sex to their children, post traumatic stress survivors, how to distinguish love from abuse and Manly Men (no that one is NOT about sex), you know you’ve found a unique lensmaster. That lensmaster calls herself Boshemia. As you can see from this overview of the titles of her lenses that appeal most to me, she’s interested in subjects that others would blush to write about. She puts it as the Human Spectrum on her lensography. Sure, but it’s a rare lensmaster who writes about ALL those sticky topics. And without making them racy or sentimental either.

She’s a new giant squid top 100 member and though I knew her work it took the feature at the Giant Squid Community Showcase to take a new look at her lenses. She’s not just a great writer, though each of the lenses featured here are excellent, she’s also a squidoo community sport. Her Welcome to Squidoo lens as well as her #50 lens featuring some great lensmasters (including yours truly) are tribute to that attitude.

KathyMcGraw – up and coming giant squid extraordinaire :)

spirituality — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:19:35 +0000

I guess I’m sort of doing a series on great new squids. In the forums she was described as someone whose 51 lenses would of course be good enough to make giant squid. So I went to check KathyMcGraw’s lenses out. True to form, I could not find one that wasn’t great. I think she’s likely to get a purple star soon as well…

I checked out some of her high ranking lenses, one that was devoted to other people’s lenses (minimum requirement to be featured on this blog) and some low ranking lenses as well. In general her lenses are great, but aren’t doing too well in the search engines yet. So here’s to giving her a few backlinks to get started…

One of her highest ranking lenses has a great title: What is a Dream Catcher and How Do You Make One. It’s nicely niche as well as uniquely well done, including pictures and a personal take on the subject. The only thing wrong with it is… the category. This lens belongs in religion and spirituality.

Her lens that links out to others is Giant Squid Challenge September 2009 Appreciation Day. Judging by the URL she started out thanking her own team, and then branched out to include all the teams… Go girl, that’s the spirit

We all want to have great pictures to put on our lenses. Kathy shares a her discovery of a flickr group that shares just such images.

Kathy’s highest ranking attempt at a commercial lens is devoted to the niche of… you guessed it … twilight, with a Halloween twist.

Next up an American icon this European had never heard of, but can certainly sympathise with: Smokey Bear a PR stunt to help prevent forest fires.

We’re almost at the end of my list… related to the dream catcher theme, Kathy carves driftwood. These unique pieces of wood bring out the creative in her, which makes sense. Drift wood is often very beautiful, even untouched.

Last but not least: How to Collect Russian Lacquer Boxes

Another squidoo Joan (Hall)

spirituality — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:26:39 +0000

I know, we all know joan, wouldn’t you think? Joan is of course a very common name. New squid Joan Hall has recently started her squidtop blog, but that’s not why I’m featuring her here. Why am I? Well, because right out of the box this giant squid wannebee has been making lensographies featuring other people’s lenses. My favorites will follow, but first her very honest lens about her learning experience on squidoo.

Apparently into nature even more than I am, she’s not only made lenses about wild plants, she has also made a lensography featuring lenses about edible wild plant’s she’s found all over squidoo. She’s taught me a new English word too: dandelion. Slightly closer to my niche is her lensography of lenses about math. To close off this review, let’s go to her bottom lens: how her sons aren’t going back to school in september… because they’re homeschooled.

Asperger’s on squidoo

spirituality — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:12:38 +0000

The reason I’m writing this blogpost is mostly that I wanted to share one of Eelkat’s best lenses: Living With Asperger’s Syndrome. From her personal lenses it’s clear Eelkat’s life is at times very hard. When I found out only recently that she’s autistic, a lot of pieces of the puzzle fell into place for me. I submitted it for LOTD with the following words:

it illustrates (high functioning) autism on many levels. Wendy’s lenses in general are unique in a way that makes them unlikely to become LOTD: just too long winded and not quite organized enough. In this case though all that is functional, because her very style of writing is illustrative of Asperger’s syndrome. For instance: she repeats herself on this lens. Repeating actions is a symptom of autism, though of course repeating text is far less of a problem than banging your head against a wall.

What comes through very well in this lens, as in others by Wendy, is the difficulty of being different. However, in this one she keeps it cool: not too emotional, not too flamboyant. Just plainly sharing her experience of being her. And yes, it reminds me of asperger’s sufferers I’ve taught.

Repeating that here because I’m not really expecting the LOTD program to last much longer.

Two other great lenses about asperger’s:

DC64 shares her journey with asperger’s in a very different way. In a way more structured and not as long winded.
Elishamarie shares her experience of having a brother with asperger’s.

Squidutils – thefluffanutta

spirituality — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:05:37 +0000

I don’t think there’s a more unique contributer to the squidoo community than thefluffanutta. His Squidutils website is a great resource for the stats, the lens directory and of course the blog. The post on how to pick your primary tag is essential for instance.

Cabaret Squidoo Best Recipes

spirituality — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 14:35:23 +0000

A LOT of squidoo lenses are devoted to recipes. Caberet Squidoo is a blog devoted to squidoo lenses featuring recipes. For instance she featured one of mine as a delicious healthy vegetarian recipes. Recently RMS has featured Easy Recipes for College Students, Best Ciabatta Bread Recipe, Garden Fresh Tomato Recipes and Best Family Picnic Menu.