23squidoo

Although it gets a lot less spam than Wordpress, Squidoo does get some. It’s not so big a problem when lensmasters pay attention and promptly delete the foul excrement (which is how I think of the dropping of random links that have nothing to do with the lens content) promptly, but then you have accounts that appear to be abandoned. What’s a conscientious squid goody-two-shoes (note to self, must look up that cultural reference that rolls off my tongue so easily) to do? Well, duh, report ‘em. So I do.

1) Look for the “contact me” button and if it’s active, let the lensmaster know by e-mail that he or she has comment spam.

2) Leave a comment for the lensmaster alerting him/her of the spam.

3) report the spam to HQ.

I had an interesting (?) comment ** from a lensmaster who apparently no longer exists. He/She left an odd comment, given that I’m not new on Squidoo, and in the comment approval page, I couldn’t tell that a link had been left, so I approved it. Although I visited the lensmaster’s homepage, I didn’t go look at the comment after I had approved it, and thus inadvertently aided and abetted the weasel by publishing the comment. Consequently when I noticed today that it had a link to some game site, I deleted the comment, but it really angered me that the scum-bag spammer had managed to get past all of my defences, so I spent some of my precious life energy tracking the varmit down.

This has got to be the first time I’ve ever found HQ was ahead of me … because the lensmaster account no longer exists, and the lenses are locked. Yay!!!

Except … that lensmaster left spam on other lenses that hasn’t been cleaned up. grrrr …

So, on a whim, since it’s very early in the morning and I have nothing better to do, I did a search of the site looking for the lensmaster’s name – woooo doggie (as Jed Clampett would say) [cultural reference to a 60's sit-com called the Beverly Hillbillies] there were a lot of them.

So I started reporting. Then it occurred to me that I’d really like to keep track of my reports because that’s how I roll sometimes. Better yet, I’d like to share who these spammers are … but sure can’t do that in the forum, or I might get my sea powers revoked and that would break my heart.

So … I hope this doesn’t get me into trouble, but here’s the report I just sent in to HQ:

These lensmasters:

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/txj2010

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/kissjordan

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/Bob_cs

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/cqianqian

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/doobin

Left spam on this lens:

http://www.squidoo.com/irenelentz

As did sonywedtrop and gamezwayal *** , who have already been dealt with.

These lensmasters:

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/tiffanyring

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/erajames777

left spam on this lens:

http://www.squidoo.com/christian-dior-history

along with a comment that has no link.

I sent a message to the lensmaster owning the lenses which have been spammed; however, given that her etsy and ebay stores are empty, she may have abandoned her account.

I know you’re busy, but I hope somebody can delete these spam comments.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, this made ME feel better, anyway.

Stay tuned, squidlets … I’m sure I’ll be back with more spam reports.

Talk about wasting your time … and mine, LOL.

**  Turns out the spammer was literally Squid surfing – he/she would literally copy a comment left by someone else on a lensmaster’s page, then surf to somebody else who had left a comment on the same page, leave that comment there with an added link, then copy a comment from THAT page, surf to another’s, drop … etc.  Said spammer had been to a new lensmaster’s page where darling Tipi had left a kind comment, which said spammer picked up and dropped on MY page … hence although it sounded odd given that I’ve been with Squidoo a long time, the comment was a good one, and like I said, I totally didn’t know that said spammer had put a link in it.  Tipi’s comment is on this page:  Lensmaster linajo That’s the comment that gamezwayal left for me.  Ugh.  Now I am wondering if it was a person or a bot that did it.  Guess I’ll never know.

*** Here’s another interesting (to me) aside to this story.  @gamezwayal is on Twitter … and is listed on @KougarKat’s Best of Squidoo list.   I’m sorry (not really) but that’s just plain funny to me.

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More spam reported:

These lensmasters:

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/onsale555

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/entry2011

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/middleeast24×7

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/raman019 (has lenses)

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/doobin

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/kissjordan

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/go4uggbootcom

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/AndreaBaff

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/treykizer

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/neetupahwa

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/hjordan23

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/zsn520

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/hjordan23

have spammed these lenses:

http://www.squidoo.com/eco-lights-to-illuminate-your-christmas

http://www.squidoo.com/secretsformanagers

http://www.squidoo.com/blair-waldorf

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/zsn520

http://www.squidoo.com/ushguli

http://www.squidoo.com/savemarykay

I have discovered that if I search the site for a known spammer name, I can find that there are many spam comments on those lenses.  What I don’t understand is why the comments don’t disappear when you delete an account for spam.  I realize that it’s up to each lensmaster to keep his or her accounts clean, and that lensmasters can become banned for spamming if enough lensmasters use the moderation panel and the ban button, but it would be a boon to all if comments connected with banned accounts vanished.  Just sayin’ …

Despite the craziness in my world, I’ve managed to toss up a few lenses, drama be damned.

That’s the good news. The bad news is, I’ve noticed that sitting in front of the computer for such long hours, combined with sitting the doctor’s office or hospital so often, has given me something that’s worse that Secretary’s Spread. I believe I’ve gotten a bad case of Squishy-Squid-Bum.

I might have found a solution, though, so of course I made a lens about it. Have you ever seen or used Kettlebells? Looks like a fun and fairly simple way to get started. We’ll see.

Anyway, here’s the first draft of the lens. I know it’s kinda “spammy” at the moment, but I wanted to get the sales stuff up first so I could research and write more to add later so as to keep it updated between now and Christmas.

Kettlebells for Fast Fun Fitness!

Kettlebells could be my solution to Squishy-Squid-Bum-Syndrome. I hope so, anyway.

Added a new page for the express purpose of providing relevant back links to theTier One Challenge

So you know that yesterday I followed my muse to Squidoo and hammered out a comprehensive lens about John Lawson – 3rd Power Outlet & ColderICE.com)

Today there was a little ripple on the interwebs, and it has been fun to watch.

First John posted it to his Facebook account and tagged me in the note. He has a few more friends on Facebook than I do, so that was cool. Then he posted it to Twitter – and that’s what was so cool for me, because he’s got 35,000 followers. That bodes well for my potential traffic to the lens. But it gets better than that, even, because I remembered to use the hashtags #squidoo and #newlens so he was featured on THREE different paper.li newspapers. Because those editions last for only 24 hrs, I decided to save the moment for posterity by using my handy-dandy little snipping tool and uploading them to TwitPics so I could share the news.

The first one I discovered was The #NewLens Daily on Twitter

But, even better because more people subscribe to it, the lens was picked up by The Deborah Bryan Daily on Twitter

Again, the edition lasts only 24 hrs, so I needed to snip it to save it.

Then I wondered what happened to The #squidoo Daily on Twitter, which is the one I usually see first. Well, turns out that paper pulls in the NewLens hashtag, so John’s url & biz name graced the lower right hand side. Not bad. Now we’ll see if it plays in Peoria.

Now to see how far and wide the ripple effect goes. Fun experiment! Thoughts, anyone?

I’m probably not the first to make this connection, but for once it was something that I actually concluded on my own, as opposed to a nifty idea I got from somebody else’s lens, so I think it’s worth blogging about here.

Building a good lens is a lot like crafting a magazine article where you have control over how the piece looks in print.

I bought a couple of magazines the other day, both of which were new to me, and as I looked them over I started noticing elements that are identical to some of the html tricks we use in Squidoo – using photos and colored text boxes with larger font highlights or quotes to break up the page was the first one that jumped out at me.  Then, once the idea took hold in my brain, I started noticing more similarities like breaking up large blocks of text, and ending on a high note that causes the reader to want to move down to the next element, and even including links to the web where people can buy products to help with the subject of the article, and learn more about the author.

The more I thought about this, the more I got to thinking of Squidoo as the world’s largest magazine, and lensography took on a whole new meaning for me … now I think of a lensography as being a table of contents for a personalized magazine. We tend to think of lensographies as ways to either collate our own work or to highlight the works of others, but what if we “played editor” and crafted our own “online magazine” on a topic and used lenses and outbound links as the table of contents?

The best part of this, for me, is that unlike a print magazine where once it goes to print that’s all she wrote, a Squidoo Magazine can be static OR dynamic!

Whether you believe or disbelieve, you will probably laugh at something on this page!

Bigfoot – Sasquatch – Humor – Video Showcase

Giant Squid OpenMike on Blog Talk Radio

This will be an ongoing monthly “fireside chat” among Squidoo lensmasters, although anyone interested in Squidoo and lensmaking is invited to give a listen – FREE!

First Monday of every month, 4:00 Eastern time (3:00 pm Central, 1:00 pm Pacific).  Check the website for more details.  You can listen to blogtalkradio online, and if it’s working properly, there’s usually a chatroom you can also participate in.  Invite your friends and family – the more, the merrier!

Giant Squid OpenMike on Blog Talk Radio

The June 30th deadline has come and gone – now many hopefuls for Giant Squid and Giant Squid 100 Club are waiting with (dare I say this?) baited breath (oh, gosh, I did!).  Plus, we have another set of Fresh Squid Contest winners, too. 

Cheers!

I’ve been so caught up in trying to make it to Giant100 by the end of June deadline, I haven’t socialized as much on Twitter and in the Squidoo community as I would like to.  However, a couple of things have caught my eye and I would like to share them with you.

Following a link on Twitter (sorry, I don’t remember now who Tweeted it, or I’d pass that credit on, too) I found this blog post by Susan52 about Kim Giancaterino and her recently published 250th lens: I Squidoo, Do You?: A Special Shining Star on Squidoo

Susan’s blog post referenced Kim’s 250th lens, entitled: A Day of 100 Squid Angel Blessings so I naturally had to satisfy my curiosity.

What I realized very quickly as I scanned the page, is that I had in front of me a virtual treasure chest of Squid-education if I would only take the time to recognize, read, and reap the rewards. Think about this for a moment – 100 lenses listed in one place, all of which were deemed “bless worthy” by an experienced Squid Angel. How much can I learn if I take the time to visit each lens and read it twice, once for content, and then for construction? I’m willing to bet it’s going to make a better lensmaster out of me.

In other news, I got my daily digest from Squidlog last night, and was startled to see MY name in the digest. Nothing like seeing your own name to fire up the curiosity big time, so I clicked through and found that Mimi (aka Growear) had written about me. You could have knocked me over with a feather right then. Probably still could today – I’m still stunned (in a good way). I’d love it if you’d click here and read it: CCGAL | SquidLog Mimi is one of the first RocketMoms to graduate, by the way. This is a cool tribute lens to her work as a RocketMom: GrowWear: RocketMoms Graduate Congratulations Mimi!

On another personal note, I just published lens #94 in my quest to reach Giant100.  I actually think I might make it if I can keep up the pace without lowering my standards.  If I haven’t lost count, that makes 30 lenses since the May Challenge began and I joined Joan’s Jolly Judicious Jetsetters.  This is the first time since I started that I’ve felt I might reach the finish line.  Feels really GOOD.

Along the way I’ve set up a Twitter account specifically for Squidoo:  SquidCCGAL  I’m only following Lensmasters with this account; if you’re a lensmaster and follow me, I’ll follow you back within a couple of days – I’m doing everything by hand with this account so I don’t get into any more Twitter Trouble.

That’s it for today – until next time, take care and may God Bless You with Abundance  and Joy.

eBay.  Who doesn’t know about eBay? Seems I’ve been seeing a lot of pitches for eBay membership sites, and eBay books, often eBooks and video sets, that promise to teach you how to make a fortune on eBay.  Well, I think they, for the most part, are making their money selling “How To Make Money on eBay” eBooks rather than selling real stuff.  I do, however know a couple of people in my real life (and I say real life meaning I knew them in person before they got started on eBay, and they aren’t just online people I’ve never met) who are making enough on eBay to continue to spend time at it over the years.

• 1) Saving $3 on every 5 auctions can add up over time.
• 2) The links from the auctions could drive traffic to the lens
• 3) links to the lens could drive traffic to my auctions
• 4) regular updates as the auctions come and go could increase lensrank
• 5) It’s pretty easy, overall
• 6) If somebody clicks through the lens to buy, there’s a potential eBay commission for the lens.

You can take a look at my original auctions lens here:  Auctions By Eurythmia