Squidoo: About.com 2.0
Earlier this fall Seth Godin wrote about a new project of his called Squidoo:
I’m excited enough about this idea that I’ve spent the last 5 months assembling a team that is building a platform called Squidoo. My goals? To raise a lot of money for the charities of your choice (or for you) at the same time we make it easier for you to spread your ideas. And to do both of those things while making it easier for people to find what they’re looking for online.
My first question: how does this differ from Wikipedia or About.com? It’s apparently got altruistic intent, and it seeks to provide current information through RSS feeds from Technorati, Flickr and anywhere else on the Web. Is this better than Wikipedia? Probably not. Does that matter? Probably not.
The site looks great, and has a very clean, Web 2.0 aesthetic. The UI follows on from services like Basecamp and Flickr–simple and functional. I’m a big fan of simple home pages with big buttons. That said, I do think they need a link off the home page that says “What the Heck is Squidoo?” It would point here, I suppose.
I was in on the beta for Squidoo, and whipped up this quick lens (that is, resource) on Tofino. I had thought to do one on the Canucks, but somebody already did that one. The service is in public beta now, so you can lens it up if you see fit.
UPDATE: First feature request: they need some community moderation functionality to complain about sub-standard or inaccurate lenses. For example, the lens on figure skating is useless, but there’s not means to improve it or file a complaint.
