Squidoo Terminology

Squid Talk - The Squidoo Terminology

Every locale that you visit on the netlands (i.e. the internet) seem to have their own terminology: Twitter with their tweet tweets and Squidoo with their lenses. They can indeed all speak English, but it must be part of the human psyche that feels the need to belong to some collective and one of the facets of membership is to develop a lingo specific to that region.

Which is all very comforting when you have been there long enough and you feel you are virtually a native or an old-timer there. But if you are a newcomer, the lingo can be as clear as mud.

Today, we want to learn some Squid talk.

Squidoo Terminology

blurb

(Definition as requested by lensmaster jaja23 from Squidoo)
1. a short promotional notice or announcement, usually highly laudatory, and commonly found on book jackets.
e.g. You can find the blurbs about the author on the jacket of the book.
2. the sounds that come out from your mouth when you find yourself giving away secrets you shouldn't!
e.g. He blurbed out all her secrets after a few drinks and she had nowhere to hide her face.

fanclub

You can join a lensmaster's fanclub or someone can join yours with the click of a button - by clicking the "Favorite It" icon. When you join a lensmaster's fanclub, every time they update one of their lenses or create a new lens, you will be informed (i.e. you will receive a squidcast). You will see the updates in your Dashboard > My Favorites.

And if you choose, other people can also see which lensmaster you have favorited. They see this when they click on your default photo to read more about you. Your favorited lensmasters will be under the "My Favorites" list.
To read more about the difference between lensroll and fanclub.

group

(Sorry. I don't know yet.)

lens

An article/webpage published on Squidoo and written by a Squidoo member (lensmaster)

lens labels

Lens labels are like category groupings. You can create as many lens labels you want. (I don't think anyone else can see this. So it would only be for you as a way to manage your lenses).

For every lens that you create, you can choose to attach a label(s) to it. That is one way of easily finding the lenses you have made by these labels/categories.

lensmaster

The Squidoo member who writes the lens.

lensography

This really is nothing more than a list of links to lenses. They may be a list of links to your own lenses, or to someone else's. You can compile this list in some logical grouping. Example, if you write about Jewelry and Psychology, you might have a list that contains only links to your Psychology articles; and another list of links that point to your Jewelry articles/pages.

lensroll

By clicking on the "Lensroll" icon on any specific page, you are saying that you would like to add a link to that page on one or more of your own pages. This link will then appear in those pages/lenses of your; on the right bar under "[your user name] Recommends .."
To read more about the difference between lensroll and fanclub.

LotD

LotD stands for "Lens of the Day". Every weekday (or thereabouts) Megan Casey - one of the original founders of Squidoo and Squidoo's Editor in Chief, will highlight a lens that stands out from the crowd - in its uniquess, approach, topic, personality, or some other feature. It could just be a lens that makes her laugh.

The LotD can be found at Squidoo Lens of the Day and you can submit it lens for consideration to lotd@squidoo.com

module

modular sections, with specific functions, that you can add/delete to/from your lens. They include making sections with headers, optional image, and text; to putting a large framed picture. There are many modules offered by Squidoo to help in the creation of your lens.

plexo

a fancy Squidoo module that you can add to your lens which allows your visitors to vote and/or rank on a list that you might have created. You can also choose to let your readers add to your list; and/or grab your (plexo) list and put it on their own pages (which will also send traffic to your page)

rate lens

Whenever you read a lens, if you like it or if you don't, you can optionally choose to rate it (between 1-5 stars). This rating helps determine the rating of the lens in the Squidoo system. Squidoo uses some secret algorithm (hmm, why does that sound familiar?!) to determine the ranking of a lens.

Whenever you see a lens, you will be able to see how the lens was rated within the category it was classified under. (Note: this category is not the same as lens labels - which is categories that you made for yourself only.) The smaller the number, the higher the rank (i.e. voted more popular).

squidcast

If you are part of the fanclub of a lensmaster, each time they update any of their lenses or add a new lens and they elect to squidcast to their fans, you will be notified of that in your "My Favorites" section. This notification is called the squidcast.