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Big lens redesign (and longest post ever!)

Megan Casey by Megan Casey on Mon, May 23rd, 2011

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On Thursday of this week we’re launching a new lens redesign.

It’s a very clean, streamlined look. In this post I will share a few previews of it. I think you will like the way it looks.

The streamlining isn’t only about look and feel — we’ve also cleaned up (refactored) the code that sits beneath. And we’re streamlining features and various offerings that we’ve piled on to lenses over the last few years. That means some lens features will be going away, some will be improved, some will be moved, and others will simply be different. Many, of course, will stay the same. Especially the features that have been most successful in terms of lensmaster joy and data-driven conversion rates.

This is big news.

It’s also exciting news. It’s also, for some, going to be frustrating news. I won’t pretend that’s not the case, and I’m not blind to it.

But the redesign is important because the lens is our most fundamental unit of content, it is our backbone, and we need to evolve it. Also because several of the fluffier features we’ve added or previously allowed have actually taken the focus off the main content of the lens — or those features have made promises to lensmasters (more traffic! a social network of friends!) that haven’t been fulfilled.

Our biggest obsession with this redesign is to showcase the main column of lensmaster content better than ever.

How to read this post.

Below I will walk through a few before and after images of a lens, share a list of the features that will be changing, and explain a little bit about why we’ve decided the things we have. This is a really long post (get comfortable!), but I hope it will give you information and clarity to help digest the changes; or at least, enough to ask follow up questions that I didn’t anticipate. I expect this dialogue will continue throughout the week, and we’ll be participating in it with you. I even plan to create a series of blog posts to address some of the opportunities in the new design, and some to help you understand why other features are being deactivated and options you have therein.

My final line of preface is this: I know Thursday is not a long way away, and I know change is easiest to grasp when you have a long time to get used to it. I hope having a few days in advance to digest the previews should be useful. There’s actually no need for manual prepwork in advance of the changes, and nothing you will urgently need to do to your lenses when the redesign happens. I do imagine we will all want to go and edit our lenses at some point to take advantage of new configurations, but I don’t imagine it will be a four alarm fire to do so.

Your Comments on this post will be read, valued, and very much considered. Thanks.

_______________________________________________________

What’s in the redesign bundle:

There’s a lot to digest, but here are the key points.

The main content column is now the dominant content zone on the page.
The Facebook Like button at the top of the lens has been replaced by a Facebook Share button.
The Lensroll ‘smiley face’ button and optional lensroll sidebar have been eliminated. Clickout reports show that Lensrolls in the sidebar of lenses get no clicks. Wow. I know that people like the concept of being able to prominently link to related lenses, though, so we’re changing the Discovery Tool / ‘Related Lenses’ feature so that it’s totally configurable by lensmasters for the first time. That feeds related lenses of your choosing into the sidebar of the lens, higher up, in a place that does get clicks. The Featured Lenses sidebar widget also gets a lot more attention with this redesign — that might be a better converting ‘lensroll’ should you want to use it.
Favoriting a lens has been removed. This includes the removal of the Favorite button you see on lenses when you’re logged in, the Favorited By faceroll on lenses and bio pages. Essentially, “favoriting” is triply redundant to “SquidLiking” and “Facebook Liking.” We also never successfully hooked Favoriting in to any kind of meaningful follow/comment system.
The Fanclub feature set is being removed, because we are…
Archiving the Squidcasts feature. For this release, we’re disabling the ability to post new Squidcasts. But we’re keeping all past Squidcasts up, and allowing lensmasters to see all the Squidcasts they’ve sent via one page, in case they want to save or transfer the text to a lens or elsewhere. Why the change in Squidcasting? Squidcasting was an awesome concept, but in practice the feature doesn’t convert to more traffic or more social relationships. The problem has always been that sending a Squidcast falls on largely deaf ears, because we don’t have the follower / subscriber system that it needs to plug in to. Those who do successfully Squidcast do so through Twitter and Facebook, so hosting our own wrapper for that message is redundant. We aim to introduce new systems where it’s easier for you share and digest activity around the lenses and topics you love. In the meantime, all your Squidcasts have been preserved for you. Just click ‘cast from any lens in your Dashboard Lens List to get to the archived page.
Lensmaster bio image has a new style, lensmaster byline is bigger.
Reduced the permitted custom html/css in the bio. (Keep reading for more examples. We know this is the biggest change, so we want to help walk you through it).
Added automatic lensmaster data bullets to the lens bio, showcasing your top lens, total number of featured lenses, and indicating whether this lens has won a purple star or Lens of the Day.
All pages throughout the site have been updated to have consistent top navigation, and more consistency in sidebar navigation
… and we’re adding 3 brand new lens themes!

____________________________________________________________

Let’s look at a before and after of a lens.

Let’s look at the before and after of 3 popular lenses. Remember that lenses look slightly different when you’re logged out vs. when you’re a logged in lensmaster, and also remember there are many ways a lensmaster can configure the ads that show on his or her lens. We’re not adding or removing any advertising zones in this release.

These are logged out views. That’s what most of your readers will see.

Before: Decorate with Fondant
After: Decorate with Fondant with redesign

Before: JungleThemedBabyShower
After: Jungle Themed Baby Shower with redesign

Before: Rats make great pets
After: Rats make great pets with redesign

The one change I want to call your attention to the most…

… that might beg for some configuration, is that we are stripping many kinds of homespun HTML and CSS from displaying in the lens bio section of lenses. Your code will remain intact within the Workshop editor if you want to grab it and use it for anything (try moving your homemade flair to a text module, perhaps?). You may also still run handcoded ads and flair on your lensmaster bio pages.

Why the bio change? We historically allowed lensmasters to add their own HTML in the bio section of the lens sidebar. That enabled them to insert their own handcrafted ads and decorations into this section. I understand why: It’s prime real estate above the fold, and you want to extend it as much as possible. Unfortunately, a lot of handcoded bio content pushes down core elements of the lens sidebar, such as the lens promo buttons and other sideways discovery links, harming conversion rates and page views throughout the site. Finally, when lensmasters add handcoded code that pushes the sidebar ads we run down below the fold, that violates our agreements with advertisers. For example, see how in this lens the multiple handcoded ads push down the rest of the sidebar.

Tomorrow I will post more before and after photos of sidebar bios for you to preview.

Here’s what we will continue to allow in the sidebar bio:
Strong / B for bolds.
Em / I for itals.
A-tags for links.
About 100 characters displayed on the lens.

Disallowed from sidebar bio:
img
span
p
style

Last (for now): Meet the new lens themes

Blueprint for lenses looking for an understated elegance. Could be interesting for education lenses, art lenses, travel lenses.
Algae for lenses that are a little bit funky.
Big Squid for lenses that are serious about their Squidoo!

____________________________________________________________

You made it!

You made it through a really long post about a lot of change. Summation: The anatomy of the lens is changing; it’s focusing more than ever on the main ‘article’ content of your lens; we’re going to help walk you through the redesign in the days to come; and we are open to feedback about how we can make these changes easiest on you. So please take a deep breath and if you have questions, we’ll do our best to get them answered here on the SquidooHQ blog over the next few days.

More previews tomorrow. Thanks.

About Megan Casey

Cofounder of Squidoo.

Comments:

http://twitter.com/lisaauch1 LisaAuch

It sure is appreciated that in amongst all the changes, and being so busy with implementing you have written to keep us as uptodate as ppossible, Thankyou.
http://squidutils.com/ thefluffanutta

I love the new design – the main content really “pops” out, which has to be a good thing. The changes to the bio will perhaps be the least welcomed, but I appreciate why it needs to be done.

http://twitter.com/richiereveley2 richie reveley

I agree.. the new design & content pops! Which I really like as I’m very visual when creating my lenses. And yes.. I also think that the bio changes are going to cause the biggest “up-roar”.. Especially on the forum.

Norma Budden

I stay away from the forums. I’ve heard too many “horror” stories – OK, slight exaggeration, but I still prefer to spend my time productively and constructively.

http://www.squidoo.com/what-you-should-know-about-the-occupy-wall-street-movement MiMi

What a bangup job, Squidteam!

Great new changes. I especially love the way the content is shadowed and lifted up and above the main horizontal bar. It highlights the main content very nicely.

Love all three themes. There’s something about the funky one that I love a lot. Those colors make me happy. :)
http://profiles.google.com/noadiart Sheryl Westleigh

New design looks great. Will be sad to see my pretty graphics in my lens bios go away though. Also glad there’s an option to apply a bio to all lenses at once, I have too many to edit each of them.
http://squidutils.com/ thefluffanutta

I’ve just realised a small problem with the new bio restrictions. Many Lensmasters like to use external stats services such as StatCounter or Google Analytics, and place an invisible tracking image in their default bio so that they can track all of their lenses at once. Everyone who uses this will need to move their tracking code to the main content…

http://twitter.com/aj1996 AJ

And if that data is important to you, then it means doing it NOW – so I now have 173 lenses to change before Thursday :(

But I do have some positive feedback too, that I will add to the timeline
http://squidutils.com/ thefluffanutta

Perhaps Squidoo will allow tags where the height and width attributes are less than or equal to 1? I.e.
http://www.facebook.com/paula.atwell Paula Atwell

Yes, I have a Google Analytics tag on my lenses. Good point here.
Anonymous

That worried me as soon as I saw it. More work!
http://www.downthewriterspath.com Vikk Simmons

Sounds like some of us will need to read a new how-to lens. :)

http://www.squidoo.com/what-you-should-know-about-the-occupy-wall-street-movement MiMi

My “gushings” didn’t go through for some reason. Thank you (again and again) for your hard work, Squidteam.
Dave Stone

As a major fan of change as a dynamic in communities, I am thrilled that you have the integrity and imagination to make changes and explain them cleanly and clearly. Good for you. An added bonus is that they look great and are in line with what I’d like to see. A great platform gets better.
http://motherhoodmiracle.com Rebecca Rizzuti

I love it. I think that this is absolutely terrific, and I love the new look, *plus* it gives me a reason to edit some lenses that needed it but which I didn’t have much fresh to add to, just so that the content is reorganized. Excellent job!

EverydayMiracles
Guest

looking forward to use the new algae theme on one of my WIP, it looks cool.
Not too sure about the 2 others, I’ll stick with what I currently use.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Nick-Upton/674865532 Nick Upton

I have been using the highlighter theme and that has now changed. Before the highlighted titles spread right across the workspace, now they only spread the width of the words in the titles; this has made all my pages look stupid as I have designed them to fit in with the old style theme.

Squidoo – please change it back. Why has it changed? There seems to be no sensible reason for it, it certainly does not look better

http://www.allconsidering.com/ Katinka Hesselink

Golly, this is quite a chock. Personally I did check up on newbies and friends through squidcasts, so I’m not too happy about them disappearing. However, I do realize there are other ways of getting an insight into new stuff in our neighbourhoods. Curious to see if it replaces what is going to be lost.

I’m not too happy about losing the ability to put images in our bio / sidebar. It was a major source of income for me. I do agree though it was subject to abuse, and I would not want you to break a contract with advertisers over the feature.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

“Golly, this is quite a chock” — Best quote of the day!

Norma Budden

LOL

http://www.allconsidering.com/ Katinka Hesselink

Disabling lensroll means a big change in the SEO structure of squidoo: that is, people will have to feature lenses they want to promote or use a link list, instead of being able to just link to something through lensroll. I realize it didn’t send traffic, but that doesn’t mean the links were meaningless.

http://www.allconsidering.com/ Katinka Hesselink

And also from an SEO perspective I do not think it’s a good idea to get rid of automated related links.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Here’s how the Discovery / Related Lenses tool will work. (This is described within the site, once the changes go live):

The Related Lenses section defaults to ON. If a lensmaster doesn’t select any lenses to feature in the Related Lenses section, we automatically match our best related, high quality lenses.

If the lensmaster decides to enter his own lenses, those override our automatic matching.

If the lensmaster decides to turn OFF the Related Lenses section, nothing will show in that space in the sidebar. I have trouble understanding why someone would turn this off, given the new option to wholly configure the links. But I’m sure some will.

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/lens4Him lens4him

So what would happen if a lensmaster only selects (for example) one related lens – would it show just this one selected lens, or would it show that one followed by your ‘best related, high quality lenses’?
Norma Budden

Personally, I won’t miss the lensroll because, with almost 200 lenses, it became too difficult trying to find the lenses I wanted to lensroll to. I’ve spent as much as 10 minutes looking for a lens – time which could have been better spent somewhere else.
http://www.allconsidering.com/ Katinka Hesselink

Sure – people should turn ON the related lenses feature: it will give them traffic.
This is pretty much what I thought you’d put up. However, it opens the door to people using the related lenses feature to ONLY promote their own lenses. I personally think Squidoo should use its right to put up the best related stuff on the site instead.
In fact – I think you’ll end up taking back that right in the end anyhow. We can link to our own lenses all over the lens – why would you add the related lenses feature to the mix?
What’s lost with lensroll is a quick and easy way to support our fellow lensmasters, and their best content, without any trouble. Adding more personalization to the related lenses feature doesn’t replace that.

Katinka Hesselink Net, spirituality, religion and webdesign
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/
http://www.allconsidering.com/

http://www.affiliatepirate.com/ Andrew Po

This is my concern as well, I use lensroll on all of my lenses and I would hate to lose it. As long as it’s near the bottom of the sidebar, it doesn’t interfere with ads and shouldn’t be a problem.

Ah, but if the Discovery tool will work similarly to Lensroll, then there should be no problems.

http://www.allconsidering.com/ Katinka Hesselink

It will obviously be less easy to work with than lensroll.

For ease of use and interlinking our OWN content, I recommend the my lenses module.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Lensrolled links were not a critical part of our SEO strategy or structure.

Yes, people should continue to use various modules like the Featured Lenses or My Lenses module, and the Featured Lenses sidebar widget, and the Related Lenses tool, to cross promote lenses.

http://www.allconsidering.com/ Katinka Hesselink

I don’t really care about your strategy, nor does Google. What I know is that those lensroll links were visible to Google, and thus made an impact, and that removing them will impact the site structure in that sense.

Katinka Hesselink Net, spirituality, religion and webdesign
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/
http://www.allconsidering.com/

http://www.ceciliaryan.com Cecilia Ryan

I’ll miss being able to favourite a lens. I’ve been using it as a separate bookmarking system for Squidoo.

Also, will we be able to have more than three sidebar widgets now? Because if not, I’m not really seeing how it can replace a lensroll, which was unlimited (or I never came up against a limit, if there was one, so it must have been fairly high).

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Interesting request to have more than 3 sidebar widgets. That wasn’t the plan, but that doesn’t mean we won’t consider it.

However, “unlimited” in general is not such a good strategy when it comes to web design or storytelling. Less is more, as other wiser people that me have said, when it comes to giving your readers recommended content to read. If you give them too much they don’t pick anything.

Thanks for your feedback Celia.

http://twitter.com/kab_fabulous kab_fabulous

One chapter into Predictably Irrational and I learned that.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

A really good book!

Martin Stankewitz

Less is more.. I appreciate the changes. From my experience advertisements in the Bio section are not essential to make sales.

Anonymous

My sales doubled when I started using it.

http://twitter.com/aj1996 AJ

Megan, I really appreciate the clear communication about what is happening and it all looks very necessary.

Let’s get the negative out of the way first – a longer lead-in would have been appreciated. Some of us are going to have to make some very fast changes because of how we use our Bios for ads, Statcounter, Google Analytics etc

I do use the Lens Bio section for my own (small) ads but if this means that overuse of this facility means that the site is in violation of agreements with advertisers then accept that it has to go. I am a great believer that the Bio is a place to add text that includes keywords relating to the lens and not everyone thinks about that.

I am particularly pleased that we will be able to nominate the 6 lenses
that show in our discovery module – this will ensure we have complete
control about what gets featured and we wont see stuff popping up that
we would rather not have there ;)

I will miss Squidcasts because I actually do get visits from them – a few Squidoo Likes as a lens is published does give it a bit of a boost, while you wait to get indexed by the Search Engines.

I hate the fact that Facebook is given such prominence and feel that those of use who choose not to participate in Facebook, because of privacy concerns do miss out, particularly if Squidcasting is being removed. Guess I will need to use Twitter more….

Happy to see Fanclubs being removed as I felt even something as innocuous as that was being used in the wrong way. “Just love your lens, liked, favorited AND I joined your fanclub” is a message I will not miss :D

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Thanks for the feedback AJ.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EW2JV4SG6JABFF4DDA62A3LPLQ Cesca

So the purple star is going to disappear from the title and move to the bio section?? I hope the LOTD gets a nice spot in the bio section too.
Glad you’re keeping the squidlikes. Sad we are losing the lensroll.
What about all the empty space on the left of the lens?? Theres about 1 inch of white space. Will that stay empty?
I love the blueprints theme – dont really like the other themes
What is this Disqus? Now my ID doesnt match my Squidoo ID – not a good idea IMO.

http://www.squidoo.com/what-you-should-know-about-the-occupy-wall-street-movement MiMi

You don’t have to comment with Disqus. Other options include Twitter, Facebook, Google… Thinking I read somewhere on here that they’ll try to add Squidoo, but don’t hold me to it. I might have read that on some other site. :)
http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Yes, the purple star is moving from the lens title to the lens bio. I should have said that in my original post, sorry.

LotD is also getting a spot in the lens bio.

The empty space you see to the *left* of the lens is just because my monitor is really wide and I took a wide screenshot. It won’t be a problem.

Disqus is what this blog uses to organize Comments like this one. Very soon it will support what is called ’single signon’ where you can login here with your Squidoo account too.

Anonymous

Will the Squid Likes be kept? I for one will be happy about that. I thought the Facebook Share was completely replacing it.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

SquidLikes aren’t going anywhere. SquidLiking is actually a very very social and very successful feature. Because you can see exactly who SquidLiked you, when it happens, in your Points stream on the dashboard.

ShaynaCat

Thanks, Megan, especially for explaining WHY the changes are being made. I’m still too new to Squidoo for most of them to make much impact on me, but I’m very glad to see that it will still be possible for me to put a link in my bio when I’m ready to start promoting properly.

Welcome to the new lens themes!
Paige Graves

When I look at these old and new lenses side by side I am really liking the focus on content. The slight overlap of the lens content box at the top says to the visitor, “Hey you! Look here – this is what you came for.” I’m betting that this one change will have a HUGE impact on folks hitting the back button.

The change in the Amazon side bar widgets is an excellent design. There’s a full “box” to showcase the products (surrounded by grayish background) which makes them stand out as important.

I did like the bio section for adding Zazzle products now and then. But oh well, it’s ok.

The FaceBook button is a little easier to spot now. Used to be almost invisible and now the color is a bit darker and it is bigger overall.

Thanks to you guys for striving for the best and not getting comfortable in just OK.

- puzzlemaker

http://www.squidoo.com/what-you-should-know-about-the-occupy-wall-street-movement MiMi

Love the way the most important content (the lensmaster’s) stands out now!
http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Thanks for the thoughtful look at a few subtle design changes that are easy to overlook. You’re right, we’re trying hard to change the ‘feel’ or perception of the lens for real human readers — and the best way to do that is to put the focus on the great content and writers who made the lens!

http://www.facebook.com/duncanconner Duncan Conner

I love the new look – I guess that’s the most important thing here and I’m delighted with it – I’m also really pleased to get control of the discovery module.

I’ll be sad to see fanclubs and squidcasts go – that’s the main way I find the new lenses I want to look at, so I’ll be hugely interested to see whatever comes in to replace it.

One thing I’m slightly worried about is displaying a lensmaster’s top lens in the bio section of every lens. When you work in a few tight niches like I do, it’s probably off-putting for readers to see a big advert for something completely unrelated in the bio section, and potentially diminishes your credibility as an information source for the topic of the lens.

In my particular case, parents reading about toys for young children would find the hobby stuff I write about ‘geeky’. Teenage and young adult hobbyists would find the kids toys ‘uncool’. Maybe it just pushes me further towards having multiple accounts – not sure.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Thanks Duncan for the good feedback.

Anonymous

I have to agree here with Duncan! I have topics on rock and roll, gardening, simple appetizers, TV shows, actors and more.

If I’m promoting the rock and roll lenses (I have quite a few), I don’t
Jimi Hendrix Revisited or Woodstock showing up on my food, gardening,
fashions or best romance lens where it makes NO sense to my visitors.

http://www.affiliatepirate.com/ Andrew Po

Hear, hear. Having the option to select a lens yourself would be nice, but honestly, I wouldn’t miss this if it was removed completely.

http://www.facebook.com/stazjia Carol Fisher

I like the cleaner, less cluttered look but I will miss Squidcasts. I did get visits from them and I also used them to check out new lenses.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

We’re working on new ways that you can find new lenses on topics you’re interested in.

http://www.facebook.com/paula.atwell Paula Atwell

Hi Megan,
I am glad to see that you are letting us know about this ahead of time. I realize that there is really no good way to let all of us know about these types of changes without some shock value, and dissention in the membership. To me, the main change here is the sidebar changes, where I admit, I will lose some valuable real estate that I have used in the past to gain sales, but otherwise the changes that I see are long overdue, doing away with features that do not benefit the site as a whole, and are only used by a small amount of lensmasters. I have personally not used the lensroll feature for quite some time, nor do I squidcast too often. Facebook is growing in influence, and I applaud the effort to use it as a tool more effectively.

I hope that these moves will continue to streamline the speed of load times for pages, and drive more traffic to our lenses from search engines. This will benefit all lensmasters, and the site as well. :)

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

This will benefit all lensmasters, and the site as well.

–That’s always the plan. :) Thanks Paula.

http://www.affiliatepirate.com/ Andrew Po

I like most of it. It looks neat. If I may post 2 suggestions:

1. Please consider the “Top lens” link again – personally I don’t want to advertise my top lens in such a visible location on a bunch of *completely unrelated* lenses. Not to mention my top lens doesn’t need any more advertising, I’d prefer some lower ranking lenses to ge ta boost instead :)

2. Please consider allowing us to add a Text Module as Sidebar Widget. I understand why custom HTML in Bio is being removed, but this leaves the sidebar pretty empty on longer lenses. Since Widgets are displayed *under* the 300×250 ad spot, this shouldn’t violate your advertiser agreements…

Thanks.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Thanks Andy.

As for #1, I can’t make promises without talking to the team, but I could imagine making the Top Lens link configurable over time. Like a ‘Favorite lens’ link instead.

For #2: We’re talking it over. Again, no promises, just an update!

Norma Budden

I really hope you decide to go with the text module in the sidebar. That would be fantastic, indeed! Andrew is right; there would be a lot of empty space on the right margin of the lens which could be put to more visual use. Keeping my fingers crossed on this one!

http://twitter.com/PaulDuxbury Paul Duxbury

Very much agree with both suggestions
Anonymous

Excellent idea IMHO!

http://squidutils.com/ thefluffanutta

Megan: further comments and feedback can be found on the forum, as some people say that they cannot (or will not) comment here: http://www.squidu.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=83389

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Thanks, but the comments we’re tracking about this conversation are here. I hope people will share their constructive thoughts in this space where we can be productive, consolidated, and on-topic.

http://squidutils.com/ thefluffanutta

(off topic) Many Lensmasters would like the option to login with their Squidoo account, and are surprised that it isn’t there – is an option? If not, how about the good ole name, email and optional website that is common with usual commenting systems?

Edit: I just saw your other comment about Disqus supporting “single signon”.

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/lens4Him lens4him

Apparently the single signon which will let you use your Squidoo login is going to be introduced shortly. Of course as you edited your original comment after I wrote this one, my comment is now somewhat redundant!
http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Yep, single signon is coming very soon.

In the meantime, the standard “post with a name & email” option is part of posting with a Disqus account, which affords the blog incredible moderation and anti-spam controls.

Anonymous

Perhaps we could have a text module in the sidebar too?

Sorry to copy you, Andrew – posted then saw yours!
Anonymous

I did notice that the Facebook Like button is right below the ad in the right sidebar. Is that button to be used for people to like our lenses or the ad? If it is for our lenses then maybe it could get moved a bit.

While I will miss the bio html ( which is where I made almost all of my sales & had most of my click thoroughs) I can understand why it is needed, so I won’t stamp my feet, I’ll just adjust. Will we need to strip out the html & codes or will it be done automatically? I see that it will remain in the editor but if we don’t touch it will it just go away or should we go in and remove it all?

I appreciate the heads up and like to see that Squidoo is always evolving and changing.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Will we need to strip out the html & codes or will it be done automatically?

–Automatically.

I see that it will remain in the editor but if we don’t touch it will it just go away or should we go in and remove it all?

–Right now the plan is to just leave any handcoded bio code people may have added, saved in the Workshop bio. The next time you edit the lens you can either grab and save it or eliminate it. That way there’s no rush.

http://www.downthewriterspath.com Vikk Simmons

I like the new look but, then, I’m a fan of clean, crisp online looks. Too new to have much of a problem. Although I have 50+ lenses, I haven’t started working the sidebars.

What I did notice is that when I looked in Explorer the new revised lenses filled up the screen but when I looked in Chrome, now, instead of filling up the screen there is a huge black section to the right. The lens doesn’t spread across. Don’t know why.

Guess I’ll see soon how it all pans out in action. Good job. (Just don’t get change-happy like they are over at eBay. Good lord.)

Joshua Brown

Hi Vikk,
The new lens previews are images, not actual web pages. The design will expand to fill any page width.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

What he said. :)

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

The new design I posted was just a screenshot I took, and the black background is part of the web service that hosts the screenshots on the web. None of this will be an issue with live lenses.

And thanks!

And I don’t think there’s any danger of Squidoo to eBay comparison. :)

Anonymous

Gosh I’m such a newb.. How do I get the new look to fit on my computer screen? It runs off the side of my wide screen monitor.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

The new look is just a screengrab, not a live web page, so it might be rendering weird for you.

The new design and the old design should have the same width.

Anonymous

“The new design and the old design should have the same width.”

Hope so. Didn’t work out that way with the new Twitter.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Caroline-Bridges-stone/100001180076357 Caroline Bridges-stone

How will we let our Squidfriends and Fans know when we have published a new lens if no Squidcast???

Anonymous

I may be wrong, but it is my understanding we will no longer have that ability anymore as we will no longer have a FanClub.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Caroline-Bridges-stone/100001180076357 Caroline Bridges-stone

My point exactly…my main question is how will I let my friends know I have a new lens?????

Norma Budden

Caroline, you will have to join Twitter or Facebook – or perhaps e-mail Friends, whether on Squidoo or not. You can also post lenses in the RocketMoms groups you are part of.

Personally, I miss having the e-mail icon because I used to use it every time I created a new lens. In the stats area of the lens, it still shows how many times a lens has been e-mailed. However, it has no way of tracking the e-mails I send through Gmail so I can’t help but wonder why it still takes up residence in our stats area.

http://www.facebook.com/Flowergardener Deborah Baumann Caikoski

It will be sad to see all the banners I’ve made and am using on the sidebar go. Although I don’t like the smaller font size, I do see a plus factor…..I don’t have to use my width bar at the bottom of my small monitor to see the right side of the lens anymore. Deb/Flowergardener
http://profiles.google.com/sandyswebnetwork Sandy Mertens

All the recent promotion with my Zazzle group on how to get products in the sidebar and now it will be gone :(

So what I am reading here is that these will still be there in the workshop, I don’t have to move them right away. I for one have too many items in most of the sidebars. But as long as they are still there, at least in workshop, I can take my time to decide what to do with these items. Right?

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

“I for one have too many items in most of the sidebars. But as long as they are still there, at least in workshop, I can take my time to decide what to do with these items. Right?”

Exactly right.

Maxine Davis

I like the new look of the lenses, but I don’t like the elimination of squidcasts. I get a lot of visits after squidcasts, and I also find out about the new lenses of people whose fanclubs I’m in. I think this is a terrible idea!
http://twitter.com/kab_fabulous kab_fabulous

I would like to see a twitter button back near the facebook share button. People are more likely to share the page on twitter if it is easy for them.

I also wish the explore related pages had photos. I think that attracts attention. Maybe the point is now not to attract attention over there, but it was helpful to move traffic around within squidoo. My eyes will never float over to those text links.

And, one more vote for a text module widget.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

We’re going to be trying different designs for the Explore Related section over time. Agreed it’s a good place to get people looking at more lenses. Agreed people love images, in general. We’re trying links for a while to let some other graphics on the lens pop and see how that works. All a matter of balancing the page toward what clicks we all want most.

I’ll check on the Twitter button.

Megan

http://twitter.com/squidoolinepro Squidoolinepro

Yeah, a twitter button would be a fabulous addition. Twitter is huge for entertainment and current events lenses, plus huge at holidays as well. People love to share on twitter.
Anonymous

In agreement there. Now that you ALL know my feelings on Facebook, of course I would love the Twitter button, LOL!

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LQUI2MT6YLBOQB2LUE5HXPRFVQ Kylyssa

Thank you for giving us such a detailed write-up of this set of changes.

It gives us a few days to fix up our custom bios and to find alternatives to Squidcasting and favoriting. I’m sure some knowledgeable Squid will have replacement ideas.

I don’t know if it’s OK to say this but I don’t like the look of the “box” over top of the heading bar. To me, it looks more like a design error than a design element and it gives the page an amateurish look. I would prefer to have it lined up under the header so it would look more like a page from an online magazine and thus more respectable and inviting. I am assuming that the long line of white space on the left will not be on the final version.

Other than the misaligned box, I really like the new look.

Thanks again for giving us this clear and informative post!

Joshua Brown

The left column overlaps the header (and footer) to emphasize lensmaster-generated content. Although our logo gets top billing, I believe the “raised” container makes your content really pop. In fact, the lens title is the first thing I notice when I browse lenses on our testing server.

The column of white space (actually, light gray) to the left of the content is simply the page background. Users with 1024 monitors won’t see as much as what Megan’s screengrabs show. Users with widescreen monitors will see more. The lens will still be centered.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LQUI2MT6YLBOQB2LUE5HXPRFVQ Kylyssa

White space is the term used for blank space (regardless of color) in magazine, newspaper, and webpage design. Some people refer to it as negative space, too. I was just a little surprised by the pop-up reminiscent look and the departure from standard layout practices. The non-conventional use of (light gray) white space is an interesting experiment as is the pop-up type look of the content box. It’s certainly nothing I couldn’t get used to if the public at large likes it.

I heartily applaud the effort to put our content front and center. I cannot emphasize that enough. I really, really, really appreciate that our content is treated so respectfully by Squidoo!

Joshua Brown

Hi Kylyssa,

I simply pointed out that it was light gray in order to avoid any confusion with others that may be reading the thread. Not everyone is up on design terminology. :)

I hope that once you see the new design on actual web pages (and not screen grabs), you won’t think the left column resembles an overlay or popup.

Anonymous

I like the overlap. Does exactly as described.
http://twitter.com/GrowWear MiMi

The page title was the first thing I saw too. Looks really nice. The design is not half-hearted; it really shows that the content is the most valuable thing there. The readers can’t help but see it as well.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Thanks for the feedback, Kylyssa.

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/lens4Him lens4him

I think these are all positive changes, apart from the fact that we seem to be now losing the ability to include Google Analytics or Statcounter on our lenses, which I know a lot of my fellow webmasters do

http://squidutils.com/ thefluffanutta

I hope that Squidoo will consider displaying tags which are only 1 pixel big. It would be easier to filter the height and width attributes…

Anonymous

I agree with Kylyssa. I don’t like the header or the left margin looking blank, it looks like the content is smashed on the page. I have always liked the default of Squidoo, we get points if we change them, so I do. But the original default is the one I like best. It’s very clean and streamlined.

About removing the “Like” button and changing it to “Sharing” button, I don’t like that at all! Maybe a visitor comes by, they “Like” it, but don’t feel the need to “Share” it. I just lost a “Like” from a visitor, not cool.

Joshua Brown

I didn’t change the widths of the left or right columns. If you don’t see a lot of space to the left and right of your lens today, you won’t see any more on Thursday.
http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Your quote: “About removing the “Like” button and changing it to “Sharing” button, I don’t like that at all! Maybe a visitor comes by, they “Like” it, but don’t feel the need to “Share” it. I just lost a “Like” from a visitor, not cool.”

Instead of basing this on assumptions, we’re basing it on data. Right now, data shows that more people use Share than Like, at least for Squidoo lenses. So we’ve swapped these to see if lenses get more Facebook interactions this way, or if for some reason, the total number of Facebook interactions goes down. Obviously, it benefits lensmasters and Squidoo alike when a lens gets shared a lot (via Like or Share), so we’re not going to make some dumb decision about this that hurts that.

Anonymous

Thank you for this information. I don’t see that data, so it’s nice to know it was based on proof.

http://twitter.com/Christene Christene

I love this whole post. I might not like all of the changes, but at least I can understand them.

My favorite change is the new look of the main content area, that it pops out now.

My least favorite change is the bio box code removal. I have statcounter code there, as well as one small banner ad. I can deal though, I didn’t like to see lenses with large banner after banner after banner, and never even thought about Squidoo’s advertiser agreements.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Thanks Christene.

The manually inserted statcounter code is something we didn’t anticipate, but we’re trying to get some direct feedback from lensmasters about the specific benefits they get from outside analytics platforms versus our Squidoo stats, in this post here: http://www.squidoohq.com/2011/05/24/drivers-needed-no-experience-necessary. Would love your voice and feedback there too.

http://twitter.com/Christene Christene

Just posted, thanks. :)

Anonymous

Really love the overall new look and am so excited for these changes. Thank you for explaining the reason why certain things are being done, it makes all the less exciting stuff a change that is easier to swallow.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1794511700 Stephanie Russell

It’ll take some getting used to, but overall I like the clean look to it. Was hoping for some more themes, but i’ll live ;)
http://twitter.com/SquidooGirl Michelle

I really love this new redesign as it looks much more professional as a writer. I am awe struck at getting rid of the img tag for the bios though. My income will be cut in half getting rid of the affiliate amazon ads in them. Please, please, please consider a text module under the ads. Me and hundreds of other lensmasters would appreciate it as we’ve all put hours upon hours updating each lens bio. Thank you.

Anonymous

I totally agree!! I use the Amazon links a lot there and it has doubled my income! Below the advertisers would be much better than not at all!
http://twitter.com/PaulDuxbury Paul Duxbury

Michelle I completely agree and thanks for highlighting this considerable issue

Lynn W

Hi Megan! Thanks for the update. I am slightly concerned about the loss of the “favoring”. I use the “favor” button a lot as a bookmark and now it looks like I am going to lose the ability to find all of the wonderful lenses that I marked. Is there any way the a “bookmark” can be added in the future so we can keep track of lenses that we really like?

Lynn (eclecticeducation)

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LQUI2MT6YLBOQB2LUE5HXPRFVQ Kylyssa

While you are figuring out a replacement, you can save the bookmarks you currently have by going to http://www.squidoo.com/members/eclecticeducation and saving it as a webpage. Fluff was kind enough to suggest that to me on the forum.

I’m not sure how we’ll bookmark new lenses we want to refer back to but this will at least save the ones we already have bookmarked.

Anonymous

Thanks for the info. I didn’t know about this.

Norma Budden

I use Google Chrome and, any time I see a lens I will want to visit again, I click the star on the right hand side of the address bar. This function works better for me than favoriting lenses because I can see them even when not signed into Squidoo and I can create many folders to keep things organized by subject.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

That’s a great tip. Thanks for sharing it Kylyssa.
Lynn W

Thanks Kylyssa!

Anonymous

Me too! Bookmarking great lens and the FanClub are really good ways to stay connected to each other!

http://twitter.com/GrowWear MiMi

What a bang-up job, @Squidteam!

Great new changes. I especially love the way the content is shadowed and lifted up and above the main horizontal bar. It highlights the main content very nicely.

Love all three themes. There’s something about the funky one that I love the most. Those colors make me happy. :)
http://twitter.com/ajgodinho Anthony Godinho

Thanks for the update and heads-up , Megan!

Overall, I like the redesign and changes that are being implemented. The new look is crisp and sharp, keeping the focus on the lens content. I like how it stands out!

I didn’t use the lens Bio section to include much HTML or banner ads, so I won’t miss that too much, though it was nice to have the flexibility to be able to customize it. It’s good that we can continue to have text links which is fine with me.

I will miss not being able to “favourite” a lens because I used it, though sparingly, to bookmark some lenses that I referred to occasionally. I know there are alternate ways to go about this, but I liked this feature because it was within Squidoo. Not s big deal though.

What…you’re taking away our fanclub??? That’s why I joined Squidoo…just kidding :P I have to admit that I liked it though, because with just one click I could visit the lensmaster’s page and see what’s new and visit their lenses. Do you plan to have a “friends” section where lensmasters can friend each other? I used the fanclub to stay in touch and visit my fans / friends (on and off) as it made it easy to just click on the picture or avatar and visit the particular lensmaster and their lenses.

I didn’t use squidcasting that much, but it was a “good to have” feature. However, I’m not going to miss it too much. However, I know many lensmasters who used it and got decent traffic. But probably it didn’t apply to most.

Thanks again, Megan…

Cheers,
AJ
http://twitter.com/kab_fabulous kab_fabulous

So is the social networking aspect of squidoo something we are pulling away from in general and leaning more toward a article site? Are there any social aspects left in the system (or any plans to introduce any in the works)?

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Very good (big picture) question. I like scope questions like this.

No, we are not turning away from social. In fact, we want to create *more* ways for lensmasters to track lenses on topics they love, follow lens activity that matters to them, and find other people writing lenses that they like. The problem is that our pre-existing ‘semi-social’ features were preventing us from clearing the way for new stuff. We had originally grafted those features on, quickly, without giving a look at the entire social environment we were trying to create. For example, joining someone’s Fan Club… that didn’t unlock any special relationship for you. Being a fan or having a fan was a very surface thing.

So yes, more social coming. But you can expect it to be focused around lenses and likeminded lensmasters, not just social chitchat for the sake of social.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

And I just thought of something else, prompted by another comment. The SquidLiking feature is actually very social and very successful. That’s not going anywhere. No, it’s not a bookmarking system, and it’s not a ‘follow’ system, but it’s a very lightweight and popular way to send praise to a lens and lensmaster, nonanonymously and instantly.

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/happynutritionist Claudia aka happynutritionist

Looks good, Meghan, the things going away won’t affect me all that much, and I like the clean look…google & other search engines like things clean, too, so that’s a good thing for Squidoo in general, all should benefit. Will copy and paste my bio in notepad for safekeeping and watch and see what happens when the change date comes.

Thanks so much for the heads up, love the new themes, esp. the first 2:-)

~claudia

http://twitter.com/squidoolinepro Squidoolinepro

Totally agree. The things going away are things I never ever used or implented in any way for traffic. And I love the Algae theme.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QCFQJIMHTCCXGQTGFBGVDAW4BE HeArt-a-Day

I didn’t use Squidcasts much, but when I did they really worked for me. After the tornado outbreak on April 27th I had a whopping 600+ visits to my lens and I assumed it was because of the Squidcast. I used them like a blog attached to the lens to add more content without making the lens extraordinarily long. Wonder what I should do now?

http://twitter.com/kab_fabulous kab_fabulous

I always got some response to a squidcast, but never visits in that high a number. I suspect your traffic was coming from another place.
http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Did you use the Squidcast to then push that message out to Twitter or Facebook? Just curious how you used it.

If not, then the only place someone would have found that Squidcast would be in the passive Favorites tab on their dashboards (which had no notification mechanism to draw people in, and reports very very low visits).

http://twitter.com/GrowWear MiMi

Megan, I get SquidCasts updated from Fluff’s Yahoo! pipes in my Google Reader every day. Most are headed “Updated” or some such. :)

http://twitter.com/PaulDuxbury Paul Duxbury

Overall I like the new look. I wish I had known about this when I spent all those hours this weekend re-working lenses as a result of the impending multi-page lens removal – but such is life
Daria Perse

I’m fine with all the changes – and most of all appreciate the new themes! :)
http://www.delovesto.com poddys

The new design does look good. I didn’t notice any monsters, so are they also going to disappear?

Statcounter has on occasion proved very useful to me, but I guess if the Bio has to change, it’s not a drastic loss. It has helped however in tracking lens visitors, especially when spam has been left.

I have found that Squidcasts have gained me more traffic in recent months, but I admit to rarely finding time to read others. With the loss, maybe my site Squidblogs.com will be able to fill a gap.

I did use the Favorites option, also the Fanclub, and will miss those. It’s useful to know if you have come across a lensmaster before, and I could do that by seeing if I joined their fanclub or not. Similarly, I Favorited most lenses that I visited, so that I could determine if I had visited them before. Now I will not be able to do that.

Overall I like the changes. It’s good to see Squidoo taking more steps forward, and I do understand that there has to be a commitment to advertisers as well. It’s all about money after all.

If the adverts are more prominent, maybe that will work in the lensmaster’s favor too with even more increased revenue.

Now we just have to wait for a change to the shared payout, since it only favors the same number of lenses as when I joined 3 1/2 years ago, and there must be 5 times more lenses now, many not getting the payout that they deserve.
Anonymous

1. I hate Facebook. I quit using it 2 years ago and have had no intention of going back to it as have been quite happy without it. Having “only” a Facebook “share” button makes me feel that I am being forced to reopen my account, as I will not have another option to pat a fellow lensmaster on the back for a nice job done. Please come up with another option. If we want to use Facebook it can already be done through the Bookmark widget or the Lens Love widget. This IMHO is redundant.

2. I have always used the “favorite” tool as a way of bookmarking a lens within the system so that I can get back to it when I want to. Will you be able to come up another type of bookmarking link storage for our favorite lens? What will happen to our favorite links that we already have stored?

3. I understand that we don’t want to push the Squidoo advertisers below the fold, but how about thinking of a way that we might be able to continue to place our own ads in the sidebar, but below the Squid advertisers rather than above them. Some ads IMHO just work better on the sidebar rather than within the context of the lens in a text module.

4. Love, love, love the turquoise-ish color of the new algae theme! The Big Squid doesn’t look a whole lot different from the Big Lucid, Zen, the Professor or Easy Street

5. I am very much going to miss the FanClub! Couldn’t we keep that?????

6. I do like very much the way the way the lensmaster info has been streamlined and moved to the top under the avatar of the sidebar.

That’s my nickel’s worth.

Joshua Brown

Glad you like Algae! FYI, Zen and Easy Street will be updated with this release. Zen will resemble it’s original design. It’s one of my new favorites.
http://twitter.com/jenny_fletcher Jenny Fletcher

I agree with Konagirl. NOT everyone loves Facebook. I’ve just returned reluctantly to using it, for the benefit of my network marketing businesses. I stopped using my account – basically someone was using FB to stalk me. I’m much more careful about personal security now.

The way this has been done virtually forces us to use FB and that is SO wrong.

Rewards4life

Hi all you hard working Squid team. Thanks for the heads up about the
changes it’s very kind a company considers it’s users before going ahead
and causing “Worldwide disruption”.

We have been thinking hard and trying to come up with a complaint,
grumble or rant but really can’t find one. Every time changes have been
made it has been for the best and this looks good. It has a professional
appearance and should display the content clearer to the reader, too
many distractions on a page just detracts from the purpose of the visit.
I’m sure we might have a question or 2 when this goes live but at the
minute we are very happy with how it looks, and unless I’m being stupid
we have no changes to make, (or very few).

Once again thank you.

Take care,

David

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Hah! Thanks David. Don’t look too hard for something to grumble about, I’m sure you’d find something… :)

Rewards4life

Things change, we can either love it or hate it but it will still happen, I’m sure you all have the best in mind. If the update makes it flow better and has increased possibilities for traffic then it’s a good thing, even if we have to change the way we operate. ;)
P.S I’m a man I thought it was my right to grumble!!!

Kathy McGraw

Megan,
As you asked for suggestions
1) I would like to see if there is a way to have a link or something to the people we have fanned in the past on our profile page? This is the way I find people since there are only many a handful that write similar content to mine (at least my niche).

2) The Bookmarking/Favoriting Button- When I was new I favorited lenses I liked, but after becoming a Giant and getting more experience I just favorited ones I wanted/needed to go back to. Is there a way to move this to our profile pages instead of the sidebar?

3) Q- Will all the themes pop-out (main content area) like the 3 new ones, ie” Christmas, Zen, etc?

4) Q- With all the neighborhoods we have, is there, or will there be a way to easily find lenses from the people we currently enjoy their writing within the Squidoo community and not through a different social networking site?

Thanks for the headsup on the new changes :)

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Hi Kathy. Thanks for the questions.

1. We don’t have that planned but I’ll keep the suggestion.

2. The Favoriting button used to save a list of lenses in a Favorites tab on the dashboard. That is going away, mainly because it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense over time to maintain bits and pieces and a feature that has been deactivated. We are planning some really useful and interesting new ways to track lenses on topics you’re interested in. I hope that will help replace the old static Favoriting system.

3. Yep. That’s the structure for all lenses, so any new themes and special project lenses like SquidPaws and SquidWho will use it. It’s infinitely better for traffic flow through the site, for development speed, and for usability when lenses carry the same structure.

4. Yes! Good question. That’s very similar to what we’re working on.

Kathy McGraw

Thanks Megan :) And looking forward to seeing all this playout.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Me too!

Cheryl Paton

I think the new look looks nice. Would like to see bio pics just be placed further down or something.
http://twitter.com/PaulDuxbury Paul Duxbury

Megan

As I reflect on these changes one of the dominant messages that is coming across to me is that the emphasis is moving to tight niche delivery. With the release of six options in the discovery module, the placing of the top performing lens on every lens and various other element this does appear to be a very strong message.

If that is the case are there tools coming for us to group lenses or do we need to look at creating more niche accounts? Equally can we look at a number of niche accounts being linked together and holding Giant status (and associated perks) rather than it only being available on the account that originally gained it?

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Hi Paul

We’ve always maintained that relevance is critical to the success of cross promoting lenses. We’ve encouraged lensmasters throughout the years to write lenses that are focused on a single topic, or as some people say, niche. So, yes, these changes continue to support the efforts to help readers discover more lenses based on the original topic that brought them in.

I hope lensmasters will use the Featured Lenses module, the Featured Lenses Sidebar Widget, and the Related Lenses (Discovery tool) section to architect an ecosystem of relevant cross promotion (interlinking) from lens to lens.

If you feel you want to further divide your lenses into niche accounts, that’s always an option. But reputations are best built and maintained in a single account.

http://twitter.com/PaulDuxbury Paul Duxbury

Thanks Megan. I appreciate you responding. I originally arrived at Squidoo because I wanted an outlet for my personal interest in Genealogy – however I increasingly write lenses in niches which are around topics from my professional life. Very different audiences as I am sure you appreciate.

I would like to be able to link the accounts easily without confusing the people who read what I write about :-)
http://twitter.com/kab_fabulous kab_fabulous

As a person who chooses lens topics like a monkey on crack (without really having any strong niches to speak of), I’m a little sad about this. The system as it was before, with the ‘explore related pages’ area promoting my lenses on lenses on similar topics squidoo allowed people to group together (informally) to create a niche on squidoo. I fear not doing as well should they choose to hold that traffic for themselves. This is such a far change from the philosophy behind that old discover bar (remember the one that took over the top of lenses). I really hope visitors recognize just how much we have on a topic, even if they don’t find what they want on the lens they are on.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

I’m not sure I follow, KAB. The Discovery / Related tool will still default to related lenses, as always…

Lensmasters can now just choose to fill that section in with 6 related lenses of their own choice, instead of only 3.

Ruth Cox

The Featured Lenses modules, as well as a few others, no longer work for me on newly created lenses. I sent in a bug report, no change, as I tried Featured and Cafepress modules today on a new lens WIP — selected links/items do not show up at all. I get the “no content” message.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Thrivingmom-On-Squidoo/100001623051685 Thrivingmom On Squidoo

I am sad to see favoriting go, as that was how I went back to super helpful lenses like Glenn’s and Greekgeek html lenses. I do greatly appreciate your explaining to us that taking the html out of our biobox is necessary in order to comply with the terms of your advertisers. I was pretty unhappy about that change until I heard the reasoning. Now I fully understand. Thanks so much for the clear communication.

It’s neat to get new themes. The algae one is great and so different from our other available themes. I would greatly like to see a yellow theme (something with a spring feel that also would be appropriate for baby pages) and a brown theme that doesn’t have a turkey. Third on my wish list would be a pastel theme.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Thanks for the support!

What, you don’t like the turkey? ;)

http://www.facebook.com/people/Thrivingmom-On-Squidoo/100001623051685 Thrivingmom On Squidoo

Actually, I love the turkey…but just for Thanksgiving topics. I think we need an earth tone theme that doesn’t feel so geared towards just Thanksgiving.

Norma Budden

I bookmark lenses so that I can return to them easily. I have a host of lenses which I arranged into categories – including some HTML lenses. I never did use the favorites list and, as for Squidcasts, if they’ve gone completely, I can use the text I would have written there and create a blog pointing to my lens. All in all, it may force me to be a little more active on my own sites and blogs, in the period it would have taken me to create something to be posted on Squidoo.

http://www.facebook.com/lorettaoliver Loretta Oliver

I think the new design looks clean and great :) The only thing I’d like to see added to the main redesign is a Tweet button next to the Facebook Share button since most people seem to do one or the other.

While I do like using the extended bio are to make a lens look different or add more information I totally understand the change that needs to be made there, so I’ll work on tweaking lenses to move that info elsewhere on my lens. (Being able to add text widgets frther down in the sidebar would be cool)

I’m sad to see the Squidcasts and FanClub go, I do use that feature to read and to send – I would definitely be interested in seeing something on the Dashboard that shows me new published and freshly updated lenses from my favorite squids.

http://www.affiliatepirate.com/ Andrew Po

There seems to be some extra space between the SquidLike, RSS, and FB share buttons, so I agree that a Tweet button might be nice as well.
http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

We’re looking at adding the Twitter button. In fact, we used to have it, and I honestly don’t remember why it went away. This is why we preview things to you guys — you’re all so good at helping us run QA on releases.

http://www.hippiespelunker.com lisamariemary

I would also love to see the tweet button! And I’m glad FB like is changing to FB share, too.
Anonymous

The Twitter widget loaded slowly and unreliably. It was a performance drain. Maybe there’s a new version…

http://twitter.com/GrowWear MiMi

I so hope so. Have missed the Twitter button ever since it disappeared many moons ago. :)
http://squidutils.com/ thefluffanutta

How about a static twitter button, which didn’t have any fancy counter? I don’t need to know how many other people have tweeted a lens, I just want an easy button so I can do it..,

http://television-tonight.blogspot.com/ DarknessFalls

Just a few questions:

1. Why completely delete the Fanclub feature? I know it’s tied to Squidcasts now, but I would still like a feature to show my appreciation to other lensmasters I like and respect.2. Have you guys thought about a Twitter button to go with that Facebook button? Does Twitter not convert as well or is there a reason Facebook is the only one included?3. Is there going to be a way to export our favorites list? Even if it’s just a list of plain text urls, it would be nice to have them.4. The bio change is the most serious update obviously. My issue is that it seriously impacts the way some serious lensmasters view their stats (AKA, using plain image tracking through a third party). I’d like to take this opportunity to once again ask for another way for us to integrate third party trackers on our lenses.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

DarknessFalls, I’d love to hear your thoughts about the external stats tracking request more specifically, over here: http://www.squidoohq.com/2011/05/24/drivers-needed-no-experience-necessary/.

Anonymous

Since big changes are coming to Squidoo, I am totally going off subject here. What I would like to see CHANGED is the home page.

The same lenses have showed up there since I joined Squidoo. They have been the same for YEARS! I think it’s unfair to the newer lens masters to know they will never make the list on the homepage because it never changes and they weren’t here for the “groundbreaking” first published lenses.

I would love to go to the homepage and and see mine there one day. When I am trying to recruit new lens masters that see the homepage and leave because they’ve been there before.

It’s also unfair that those on the homepage will always get more traffic than my lenses, even if mine are better than the ones listed on the homepage.

Change it? Please?

http://www.affiliatepirate.com/ Andrew Po

The lenses are placed on the homepage depending on their lensrank though, not because of their age. Most of them get the traffic needed to maintain high lensrank from other sources than homepage I imagine.
http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Noted for another time, and a more on-topic thread. Many lensmasters have dreams of a new homepage. We do too.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZZSXYRV7BQVWMMLUVAVDDFGX34 JustMe

I understand…but trust me, I came in after lots of others were established and worked my way up. Also, I have to work very hard to stay on the homepage ;).
- THIS IS JJNW

http://profiles.google.com/albom.rhonda Rhonda Albom

Despite the frustration of changes that effect over 300 of my lenses, I do see an overall visual improvement in the new lenses. After reading the comments, I worry a bit about the SEO impact. I will miss the fanclubs and squidcasts, as well as the flexibility in the bio. On the flip side I will enjoy the control over the discovery module. ~ This is Pukeko
http://twitter.com/jenny_fletcher Jenny Fletcher

I definitely disagree with the removal of Fanclub/Squidcasts and clearly from what people say here, this is likely to be the least popular of the changes.
It is always good to have new themes, but it would have been good to have a food and cooking themed one. Perhaps I need to find out how Squidthemes are designed and make one.

I don’t like the fact that the new look is not centred on the page though, it’s really ugly and irritating. I wonder if this has been done to make Squidoo more compatible with mobile browsing devices? Can see no other reason for it.I did see that this problem may be tied to Google Chrome and I’m surprised that changes are allowed to be released without adequate testing across all browser platforms.I totally agree with the comments about the homepage. Some of the lenses on there are really badly written and frankly boring (does ANYONE really eat stuffed cabbage?) and they NEVER change. I’d like to see a homepage with NO lens links at all, or at least none above the fold and much more of an explanation of what Squidoo is about. It isn’t self-explanatory. The writers of those lenses have had massive and in some cases unjustified exposure for long enough. If they were really based on popularity, there would be far more seasonal change evident or response to things in the news.

Please find that Twitter button – thanks

http://www.affiliatepirate.com/ Andrew Po

Squidoo homepage probably has lots of “Google juice” – if they wouldn’t include individual lens links, it would still be good to link to topic and subtopic pages, I think.
Joshua Brown

Hi Jenny,

Although the screen grabs may not do it justice, the new lens design is still perfectly centered on the page. I’m not sure exactly what you mean about Google Chrome and browser testing, but I promise that I’ve been doing nothing but browser testing the last few days. I even spent a decent amount of time creating hacks for IE6, although our support for that browser will be very limited.

http://twitter.com/Chadrews Andrew

I was wondering, are there any advantages to Facebook “Share” button as opposed to the current “Like” button? As far as I can see, “Like” works with a single click (and still offers you an option to “share” afterwards), while “Share” is a bit more complicated: it opens a pop-up window and asks you to enter some stuff, choose a thumbnail and submit…

I remember that “Shared” content used to be more visible than “Liked” content on Facebook (it had an excerpt & thumbnail, as opposed to a simple link), but is this still the case?

For a while now, whenever I “Like” something, it appears on my Facebook feed with a thumbnail and an excerpt – just like “Shared” content does.

Is it just me?

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Good question, and yes, there’s a difference.

‘Share’ gets higher billing in a Facebook newsfeed and carries with it an image of the lens and an excerpt, which gets more attention from Facebook friends. ’Like’ gets lower priority in the newsfeed, and no image.

As I posted somewhere else in this monster thread, we’re just swapping the two buttons to see which ultimately pushes out the most FB shares/likes and which brings the most visits back.

Anonymous

I am probably in the minority here judging from the comments thus far, but I like the Bio redesign. By definition a “bio area” is to tell a bit about the author and/or the lens they have written. I, too, have been guilty of filling it with affiliate links and no content. I think this is a change for the better!

Having said that, it would be nice to have a text module option in the Widgets area. You could control the placement so it doesn’t affect the fold.

Overall, I am very pleased with Squidoo and the continued efforts to improve!

Mandee
http://www.facebook.com/las.ratnayake Las Ratnayake

Is it possible to get RSS feed for a lens so that when the modules get updated the feed will reflect this. If I remember correctly the RSS feed I tried only gave squidcast updates. I maybe wrong.

http://squidutils.com/ thefluffanutta

Las raises an important point: what will happen to RSS feeds from lenses if there are no SquidCasts?

Norma Budden

I can imagine that Squidoo would grow boring if everything remained the same forever.

Though I replied to some comments below, I thought I would say that, when all is said and done, the “new” Squidoo lens will look much better.

I’ve contemplated setting up different accounts in the past but always decided against it; it felt similar to having too many blogs to maintain – and great lenses take much longer to create than great blog posts. I like where the bio is placed on the revised lens but it would be good if we could select the lens to be featured on a given lens. Could that one area be made as an option, as with the bio on a lens (default or custom?) If so, that would be awesomtastic! (Wow! I wonder where that word came from?)

If a text module was able to added as a sidebar widget, it would be super and, the idea of having four widgets on the right sidebar – as someone suggested – is a great idea with lensrolls, fans and longer bios being removed. Even if there was a character limit, it would be acceptable. This might be a good area to also feature Goggle Analytics tags and stat counters. Just an idea!
http://asotvblog.info/ Dinesh Mohan Raturi

The redesigned lenses do look better. Sad to see Squidcasts go, I think they were great for SEO. If possible please remove “Member Since” in the Lens Bio. I’m saying this coz I used the “about me” module before and google would always display the year of joining in the search snippet. If google does that with the lens bio too I see a problem. It may give a potential visitor the idea that the lens was created years ago.

People don’t really like old stuff now a days. I guess it would be better to replace the year of joining with the number of years the person has been a member on Squidoo.
http://twitter.com/GrandmaMarilyn Marilyn Southmayd

It might be well and good but I was just learning how to use a lot of the features that have been taken away from me. I will reserve my opinion until I see how it affects my lenses I have already. I don’t want them to go back to boring.
Mindy Choporis

I am sad to see the squidcasts go. I, for one, liked to see what everyone was up to. I agree with almost all of the reasons behind these changes. However, I wholeheartedly disagree that squidcasting “does not convert to more social relationships” because for me, it has.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Carol-Montgomery-Madagan/1168035399 Carol Montgomery Madagan

It has for me too. Plus I knew when some of my favorite lensmasters posted new lenses or updates due to their squidcasts.

http://profiles.google.com/hlkljgk Heather Katsoulis

nice looking redesign. sorry to see squidcasts go – i have been getting traffic from them, but i was sort of using them like a blog for a few lenses… i’m sure i’ll figure something out, and maybe it’ll be even more effective. :)
http://winging-it.me Carma

Just read thru the post and 150+ comments and I’m generally in agreement with everyone. I LOVE the new design look! The emphasis on the main column is beautiful! The emphasis on the sidebar widgets is very nice too. And I can’t say how happy I am to have the purple star removed from its position in the title, where it looked like an asterisk for a footnote!

My suggestions echo what others have said: (1) a Twitter button would be lovely and it doesn’t need a counter on it if that would slow things down, and (2) it would be SPLENDID to have an HTML-capable text box in the sidebar. I don’t even mind losing the “above the fold” space as long as we can keep a text box in the sidebar somewhere. You already know I’m a big user of the sidebar HTML (since you used one of my lenses as an example!). I work very hard on the visual flow of my lenses, and too often sacrifice placing sales images in favor of keeping the visual flow smooth and attractive. The sidebar was absolutely perfect for putting those items on view without breaking up the visual appeal of the lens itself. And, as others pointed out, on longer lenses that can be a HUGE blank space which leaves the page looking unbalanced; a text box somewhere in the lower part of the sidebar would enable us to utilize otherwise wasted real estate on the lens.

Minor points: I agree that I have many niches and “Homeschool Quotes” as my top lens in the bio box won’t make sense on a lot of them (or will only make sense to other Squids). With the redesign of the discovery box, personally I don’t think we need a top lens or anything else in the bio box, since what we are all shooting for is external traffic and that might confuse a nonSquid. I do regret the Squidcasts but not the favorites or fanclubs, but that’s not a huge deal.

So … kudos! Excellent changes, beautiful redesign, and plenty of warning that changes are coming. Thanks for all you do for us!

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Thanks for the thoughtful take, as always!

Louisa Cooper

As with all things there is apprehension. All of my lenses have HTML and I can’t help but think of a catastrophe. However, since there is little I can do about it I will just have to go with the flow. Will miss squidcasts. New design looks good, from what I can see at the moment. Hope I am as impressed by the rest. Fingers crossed for what is to be.
Ruth Cox

I’m thinking the changes will be for the good of all, hoping so, at least. However, I will miss the social aspects I’ve just become comfortable with in the squidcasting, favorites, lensrolling, and such. But, I’m sure I’ll figure something out to continue the personal contact, as well as get out of “newbe” mode and into a groove.

I also want to say I think it’s great that you’ve posted here and are monitoring and replying to many of the comments. I know that takes a lot of time, but I’m impressed you realize it’s important. Thanks!
http://twitter.com/nightbear Susan Kaul

I like the new design and I love the new themes, I do understand the need to protect the prime area for our advertisers and I assume we all benefit from those efforts. I too would love to see a text module in the side bar and I also desire a tweet button as I don’t even use facebook, for many reasons. One question though, Is all this change going to do anything to the monster activity on squidoo. For instance the quests have been gone for awhile, so just wondering if we should expect change with those little guys too. I really like them and would hate to see them go too.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

More Quests are on the way! Thanks for the good thoughts, Susan.

http://luminosity.livejournal.com Luminosity

The adding of the twitter button is smart, since it is another good way to share. I think the new lens look cleaner.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

I do too. Thanks Matthew.

http://twitter.com/tritrain tritrain

When will the Bio changes take effect? I have a lot of lenses to fix.

http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Last week: http://www.squidoohq.com/2011/05/26/lens-redesign-launch-today/

http://twitter.com/bygproductions Valerie

Sad about the favorites disappear. That’s how I tagged lenses I wanted to remember, like some html lenses that I like etc.
http://squidoo.com/dannystaple dannystaple

A little sad to see squidcasts go. I’ll be placing what I had on the page – since I actually wrote real stuff there (more than just ‘updated this lens today’), and looking for alternatives – like some combination of RSS + other blogs for that. Oh – and please kill the drop down ads – they get right in the way of content, and my editing. The new themes are great though!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Carol-Montgomery-Madagan/1168035399 Carol Montgomery Madagan

I will really miss the squidcasts. In my case they did give me a lot of visits from Squid friends who were in my fan club. These are not people that I am friends w/ on Facebook or Twitter (nor do I want to friend internet people for facebook) so I will not get any traffic from squid friends now. sigh.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZZSXYRV7BQVWMMLUVAVDDFGX34 JustMe

This is totally random, but since we are changin’ things — may I please ask why ‘monsters’ were chosen for trophies? Why not SEA monsters? Kind of feels like conflicting marketing, ya know?

Are we getting away from the Squid-ishness? Thanks : ). ~ JJNW
http://www.squidoo.com Megan Casey, Cofounder

Hi guys, I am closing the comments on this post because this redesign has been released as of last Thursday, many bugs fixed, and because some of the information from this early preview has been updated and changed. The new lens design is alive and kicking and doing very well. Thanks again for your help with all the feedback in advance of our release.