Apr 07
Is Squidoo MySpace for Grownups?
The more I think about it, the more I think Squidoo is a grownup version of MySpace - and here’s why:
1. MySpace is a community where people, usually in the 12-25 age bracket, post pages that highlight their favorite music, tell a little about themselves, and is pretty self-serving. You want to meet people, you get a MySpace page, tell about yourself, and hopefully you’ll get very very popular, make lots of friends, and boost your favorite musicians into fame.
2. Squidoo is a community where you get a ‘lens’ and create a page centered around a specific topic - anything from cooking crawdads to solopreneur marketing to the social ramifications of boingboing. Modules try to sell using amazon, ebay, affiliate links, and google adsense - all the while adding to the greater cosmos of Squidoo’s information laboratory.
Am I the only one who sees the correlation?
Now, I may have some bias in my opinions, as yesterday (4/5/06) Seth Godin mentioned my BoingBoing lens on his blog, thus driving a flock of people to my blog(s) lens(es) and website(s) - and compelling all my contacts to write me an email in regard to it.
I’m sure Squidoo has a place, as does MySpace and Second Life. But, I can’t help but wonder if all we’re doing is recreating the MySpace paradigm for the over-30 crowd.
What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Why? Let me know below…
April 9th, 2006 at 12:50 am
I think they’re both great services - but for different reasons.
MySpace is definitely all about socializing - based on the site’s prominent features - browsing and searching through profiles, posting comments on your friends’ pages, viewing photo albums, etc.
Does Squidoo have similar community features? What’s great about MySpace is you can go to your friends’ site, see who they are friends with, click through to another random friend, etc. See how many clicks it takes you to get to Kevin Bacon (more than 6, based on this random method, I’m sure, lol).
I’m curious to know what type of “relationship” people are trying to get out of Squidoo.
In Myspace - you can probably categorize it into a few key areas:
1. Guys looking to meet girls
2. Girls looking to meet guys
3. Old friends trying to stay in touch
4. Promoters trying to throw parties for bands / bars etc.
In Squidoo - does a crawdad cook really want to meet other crawdad cooks? Or does the cook want to meet a crawdad supplier? Does the Crawdad lens link to other Lensmasters’ cooking lens? I really didn’t see a lot of linking from one Lensmaster to another Lensmaster, whereas I did see Lensmasters saying - here is a link to another lens that I authored.
I think Squidoo is almost more related to “Search” than “Social Networking.” It is definitely a great way to learn from experts on a variety of topics. But - it would be great if it turned into a sticky site like MySpace - and one that fosters a vibrant community for adults.
April 9th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
I think the more social aspect of squidoo is behind-the-scenes, where myspace is more transparent. Squidoo pages are about becoming an ‘expert’ in whatever niche you desire. For instance, the boing boing lens I created has generated a ton of traffic and almost as much email - it’s ranked #7 at squidoo and #5 in a search of google
I think the social aspect of it is just starting to shine through - and more of it to come. I don’t think, like MySpace (or LinkedIn, even)it will be about who you know, it will be about who The Experts are that you know.
I’ve seen quite a bit of linking between lenses, and I think there’s a lot more to come.
April 10th, 2006 at 6:50 am
I came to much the same conclusion back in December (http://thebitterpill.com/12-2005/squidoo/), but like ZenRob, I think they’re going to have to improve the social networking aspect to make that really happen.
May 31st, 2006 at 4:23 pm
I think LinkedIn is the MySpace for the 30+ crowd… They’ve moved on from making friends to making a name for themselves…
April 18th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Squidoo isn’t myspace for grown-ups, Blinxi is. Created by a retired couple who felt too old for myspace.
Check it out at http://www.blinxi.com