Is There a Future for Squidoo?

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My wife usually asks me a lot of questions: What do we eat this evening? When is my second coffee ready? When are you going to make chicken in peanuts again? All that kind of things that can be important to a woman to know.

A couple of days ago, she explained to me what was happening on Squidoo and then she asked me: Why do they do that? I mean, they must be able to see that people don’t dare to write anymore. They are losing writers, good writers, and yet, they go on? Would you like to make a vglol… vlgol.. video about it?And since I halfway promised I would try another video after my first try English back the 14th November last year, then I thought… What the heck! (And no, it has nothing to do with my wife telling me that she will close my World of Warcraft account if I didn’t do it!).

Now, Squidoo is punishing writers who write “bad lenses”. Anyone can write bad lenses once in a while. Let’s suppose we take two users, one who doesn’t care and just uses Squidoo to spam, and one who is writing the best he/she can and sometimes writes not so good lenses (according to Squidoos new fuzzy standard).

Then Squidoo punishes them both by flagging their lense. The spammer won’t care much (he still has so and so many online anyway and is using other portals than just Squidoo). But the one who puts his or her heart in it will get very disappointed and might very well stop to write for Squidoo.

It doesn’t take a degree in metaphysic to know, that by doing that, Squidoo will lose the good or interested writers and keep the bad (or the ones who don’t care)… So why do they do it and why do they keep on doing it this way?

I do my best to give an explanation. I hope you will understand my (kind of) English (it is better than my Thalassian, my wife says, but what does she know?) and don’t hesitate to share, or google+, or like or tweet or comment this. It’ll make me one happy shrink.

11 thoughts on “Is There a Future for Squidoo?”

  1. Fascinating view of what has been happening, thank you for that.

    As someone who has invested 5 years of labour into my lenses it is hard to be impersonal and look at it from this view… I only see and ‘feel’ it on a personal level, as a ‘direct hit’ on my work and ethics.

    I hope that you do make more videos, I love the accent by the way.

    1. Hello Helene,

      Yes, it is very difficult to stay rational when you have invested so many years of work (and of course, feelings) into something and the unfair way Squidoo is treating their writers doesn’t make things better.

      By the way, I find it very rude that they pinpoint some lenses and hang them out to dry in front of others. Not very considerate.

      It doesn’t look like they are shifting course so maybe it is time to find an alternative to Squidoo, remove your texts from there and put them elsewhere, where your work is more appreciated?

      Originally, I made my first video here because my wife had some challenge or I don’t remember what… She wanted me to do something on her blog. But I don’t know anything about marketing. My specialty is people, psyche, feelings, hypnosis and human behavior… not the same ballgame at all.

      It took me eight or nine month to dare make my first blog, video too and only four months before I dared making another one… If we keep it in half, maybe I will dare another one in a couple of months 🙂

      I am happy my accent is understandable 🙂

      Regards,

      Cyril

  2. Great video. It make s weird kind of sense…I think a lot of people will wait and see what happens before being more active. I know I am.

    Thanks for the insight.

    1. Thank you very much, Fran, I am glad you liked my video 🙂

      Yes, I believe people are unsure right now and in a kind of “observing mode”.

      I haven’t made many lenses, two or three I think, but I know I am going to remove them soon and close my account there. But okay, I only have a couple of lenses so it is easy to do.

      Regards,

      Cyril

  3. Thanks, Cyril, for making this video, I’m as well waiting to see what next!
    Thanks for pointing out the thought, way of thinking.
    Why don’t you go ahead with what you are good at, like making videos?
    Kind Regards
    IngeLise

    1. Hello IngeLise,

      Thank you very much for your comment 🙂

      I have done many videos but they are all in French and on psychological subjects, about communication, couples and their problems, how to hold on to a “No”, how to speak up, etc. So I am a bit of a guest on this blog and, even though I like to make videos, I feel a bit awkward making them in English.

      I guess that if I keep on doing it, it will go away.

      But comments like that are definitely an inspiration for me to find new ideas and to make some new videos 🙂

      Thank you again for your comment.

  4. Thanks for a good video, Cyril. 🙂
    It was highly interesting, and certainly I have had exactly the same thoughts. When EzineArticles changed their focus, and now requires even more than ever before that even a Twitter account that is linked to has to focus solely on the subject you write about, then I left – and the articles that ARE already approved will STAY, but new ones won’t be written simply because I write on a variety of subjects – not just ones I earn money from or have a theme page related to….

    So without knowing the actual psychology behind my decision, I have at least made a conscious decision to focus on the positive – traffic is still going to articles I made an effort in writing years ago – rather than crying over the spilt milk caused by Chris Knight and his theme constantly changing their focus.

    Very nice to know, so thanks again. 🙂

  5. I just got my first flag and, frankly, I wrote on Squidoo for fun and to bring some insight and resources to a subject that’s not often covered…yodeling. I’m on who thinks my lenses are pretty good and do the best I can. But it’s not worth the hassle so I left. I’m moving on my own website.
    Thanks for the article.

    1. I’m sorry to hear that you got a lens flagged, Terry. And I fully agree with you that it’s not worth the trouble of jumping through hoops for Squidoo HQ. Good luck with your website 🙂

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