You gotta love it. Seth Godin and the smart crew he’s assembled have
torn a page directly out of Seth’s books to soft-launch his new online
company, Squidoo. No traditional PR, no advertising,
just viral blogging via his new e-book, Everyone Is An Expert [31-page PDF], that explains (sort of) what the service does. I was lucky enough to get a copy from his Editor-in-Chief Megan Casey, when she emailed the e-book out last week. Sorry it’s taken so long to get it up.
In the e-book Seth talks about creating “meaning” out of the mess of information you get when you search for something on the Web. Squidoo is all about finding what you’re really looking for. Because an expert has compiled information for you in a way that makes sense and is immediately useful.
And who are these experts? Well, as the e-book explains, anybody can be an expert. Squidoo’s Web 2.0 platform enables you to create a “lens” – a special kind of Web page that points to links and information about your expertise. But it’s not just links. That doesn’t describe it properly. It’s RSS feeds and other stuff that automatically update your lens page for you.
(And it’s Web 2.0 because Seth & co. are building it from other stuff that’s already out there. I’m just trying to decipher what I’ve read in the e-book… )
Here’s the clearest explanation thus far, from the Squidoo blog, of how a lens works:
It’s a guide (like about.com) and a reference (like wikipedia.com).
It’s a place for personal expression (like typepad.com) and an open
platform for real people (like del.ico.us).
Tantalizingly, the e-book closes with a list of URLs that link to sample lenses. But they don’t go live until Oct. 18th!
Here are two of them:
http://www.squidoo.com/samples/royalties
http://www.squidoo.com/samples/sethgodin
Full disclosure: I’m also incredibly lucky that Megan, formerly of Penguin Portfolio, has continued to work with me as an editor on The Corporate Blogging Book. Seth lured her away from Penguin in July.