JustBon At Squidoo

Because of working on other projects, and being out of town with limited internet access, I haven’t been able to post here for sometime. (I was actually at a casino for the first time in my life! I’m not a gambler, so didn’t win or lose too much - but it was fun watching some of the high rollers winning and losing in equal measure!)

It was a wonderful surprise, however, to open up my e-mails today to find that I had won something else - the Choose Your Favorite Giant Lens Contest run by, (I believe), those fabbo Giant Squid organizers. I must admit I didn’t even know the lens was in the running, so it came as something of a shock to read the e-mail! You can see the announcement at the Giant Squid Community Showcase and my thanks to everyone who made this possible

I did manage to get a little work done on Squidoo over the past few days - mainly updating lenses into the new categories, as well as revamping the front page of one of my Groups: Handsome Hunky Men. I’ve tried to categorize the lenses into relevant subjects, as well as featuring many more of the great lenses there. I hope the members of the Group enjoy the changes that have been made, and hopefully, this will drive more traffic to their lenses. The Group has been sitting atop the rankings in People for some time (although I did notice that those wonderful Squid Angels had flown gracefully to the top today, knocking the guys into second place).

As for new lenses, I’ve only managed to create two or three recently:

DVD Regions Explained: I did this one mainly because my English hubby had lots of problems when he moved to the US with playing his UK videos and DVDs on a regular American player. I’m not sure if I’ve put it in the right category (How-To), as it may be better in Movies and TV?

Stumpedia - The Search Engine: I saw a discussion about Stumpedia in the Forum, and one of the contributors was asking if there was a central lens where members profiles could be added. So, I took the bull by the horns and created one. Having been a member at the site for a little while, I’ve noticed that there are quite a few Squidoo-ers there, so I thought it would be nice to get as many profiles as possible together so that people could connect if they wish.

UK Number One Hits of the Seventies: This one seems to have taken an eternity to finish - mainly because of all the video and info searches I had to do. The lens has been published for a week or so, only because I was fed up with looking at it in my WIPs. It’s now looking as complete as I think I’m going to get it, but I’m sure I’ll be tweaking it once videos suddenly disappear and as new things come to mind.

110 lenses now published.

I haven’t yet been able to update my lens JustBon’s Bottom Twenty Squidoo Lenses.

However, I was happy to see that I could update one of my Olympics lenses, Great Britain at the Olympics: The Medal Winners, as Britain has gathered some more medals overnight, and now has a tally of 37. The team now stands fourth in the medal table (based on the number of medals) or third (if based on the number of different color medals). My hubby says this is the best his home country has done in years, and I think he’s looking for a few more…I’m trying to come up with a way that the lens does not become too long and unwieldy. Perhaps, the odd separate lens on each competitor might do it.

Taking a look at my dashboard, I’ve noticed that the majority of my lyrics lenses are sinking without trace. Even updating them doesn’t really seem to help too much. I guess the answer is to choose the really popular songs of the day and then tie the lens in with another relevant one. I am experimenting with this with another lyric lens that I have just published. David Archuleta, the American Idol runner-up, has always been the subject of one of my more visited lenses, and he has just released his first single since the end of the competition. So, it made sense to link up David Archuleta: Crush Lyrics with David Archuleta to see what happens. Time will tell…

Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification

A few weeks ago, I managed to complete my 100th lens and at that time I decided that I was going to slow down the lens creations and go back and update a lot of lenses that I had been neglecting for some time. Scanning over my dashboard today, I noticed that all my lenses now rank within the top 100,000 - not bad, I guess, since there now are around 650,000 total lenses. All the updating seems to have paid off. Now I need to address the traffic problem…

One of the things I did to reach my 100 lens goal was to create some lyrics lenses. As I write, I’ve got 16 of them. Most are doing poorly, with only one in my Top 10 lenses, while the others seem to be languishing nearer the bottom of my lens list. I wonder where other Lensmasters are seeing their lyrics lenses rank, and what they’re doing to popularize them?

As I mentioned, I haven’t been able to get out many newly published lenses. I still have 8 in WIP mode, but these are subjects which will need a lot of research before they are ready to go.

As it stands now, I have 107 published lenses, the newest ones being:

JustBons Bottom Twenty Squidoo Lenses

Christian Bale

The 10 Worst Songs Ever

Akron, Ohio

and my contribution to this year’s Olympics:

Alexandre Despatie - Champion Diver

Rankings 

Top 100: 0

Top 1000: 3

Top 2000: 5

Top 10,000: 22

I’m not sure when Squidoo introduced some of their new widgets (I musta been sleeping), but I’ve found some useful ones which have helped me in updating some lenses.

I noticed a new Weather widget (from the Weather Channel), and I thought that this would be ideal for my lens about my husband’s hometown, Godalming in the UK. And it’s great that it works for British locations too. I’ve also added it to my new lens about my hometown, Akron Ohio, and my Cleveland Indians page.

I also discovered the Google Maps widget, which has helped with the latter lenses, but it does not appear to recognize UK locations. Check out how both widgets look!

So, if like me, you haven’t found these little treasures, which can make your lenses look even cooler - then check them out the next time you’re editing a relevant lens.

There look to be other new additions too…great ways to update your content!

edit: I have discovered that Google Maps does indeed recognize UK locations

I was trolling around on the Web yesterday, randomly looking for some more inspiration for new lenses, when I came upon on a site called spinner.com. They had a section there which named what they believe are the twenty worst songs ever. Well, it wasn’t long before my newest Ever lens was born The 10 Worst Songs Ever, using the songs that they had nominated.

I can’t say that I necessarily agree with all of them, and because of this another light went off in my head. I’ve been thinking about creating another lens for Squidoo’s charitable donations, and maybe a lens where Lensmasters nominate their own choice of worst song might work?

Perhaps if I make the suggestion in the forum that the first 10 Lensmasters t0 post their nomination for worst song will be featured on the lens, all proceeds going to charity. This is all dependent of course on whether I can find a video for the song too. (I’m really thinking out loud here).

Just for fun, I recently created a lens featuring my twenty lenses which are at the bottom of my lensranking. Today, I noticed that this lens is now my tenth ranked one. So, you can get 20 into 10

See the lens here: JustBon’s Bottom Twenty Squidoo Lenses

(edited to make link clearer)

I missed seeing this movie when it was first released around eight years ago, but a friend recommended it to me.

I have to say I am impressed. It’s an unusual film in that it takes place in reverse (with the use of color and black and white film to distinguish the timing), and you learn how Leonard (Guy Pearce) arrives  at his present state as Leonard himself learns the facts (or are these the facts?)

If you don’t mind the odd outburst of bad language and some scenes of violence, then you should really enjoy Leonard’s mystery, which keeps you guessing until the end.

Come and take a look at Memento and let reader’s know what you think!

What’s in a song? Easy - lyrics and music!

It seems that one of the most popular searches on the web is for song lyrics - particularly those that are often misheard or misunderstood. So, what better way to build a lens than around a set of song lyrics!

I’ve created several now - some are classic rock songs and others are the latest popular hits of the day:

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Manfred Mann’s Earthband - Blinded By the Light
Procol Harum - A Whiter Shade of Pale
Chris Brown - Forever
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love
Miley Cyrus - 7 Things

So far, so good - but more to come!

At last, I have published two lenses that have been sitting as WIPs for some time!

Firstly, I wanted to  publish something about the popular Sixties singer, Gary Puckett and his group the Union Gap. I’ve always enjoyed listening to songs like “Young Girl” and “Woman, Woman”, and to have some of these songs available on one lens is great. Gary Puckett has a wonderful voice, and I never tire of listening to it.

Secondly, my husband’s 50th birthday is this year and so I decided to make a lens about the year he was born, 1958. Tried to include all the things I could think of, but I’m sure I’ve forgotten something…lol!

In other news…lol…my dashboard indicates that I have three lenses in the Top 1000 (the Top 100 will ALWAYS be out of reach for me), with 27 in the Top 10,000. My problem has always been traffic, but I’m happy to have 87 published lenses within the Top 100,000

I’ve been meaning to post here for some time, but I’ve been trying to reach my goal of 100 lenses by the end of the month.

Posted one lyrics lens today that got caught in the spambait, so I’ve had to have it hand reviewed Only a few days left now and I’m not sure that I’m going to reach my target [sigh]…