JustBon At Squidoo

Wow! Where does the time go? I can’t believe that three months has passed since I last recorded a post here. Lots of things lens-wise and otherwise have happened over this time, and trying to remember it all is going to take some digging

Let’s see now - where to start?

Some good news was the honor of being nominated for Best Music Lens in the 2008 Giant Squid Awards for my British Glam Rock of the 70s lens. I was really thrilled to find out this news as this was one of the first lenses I created upon joining Squidoo, almost two years ago now. It’s kind of like one of my babies, and I’m always really pleased that so many visitors find it entertaining. Looking at the voting right now, it’s probably not going to win, as it’s up against some very stiff competition from some other superb music lenses. However, whatever the outcome, it’s just so gratifying knowing that it is considered to be among the Top 5.

Much of the reason for not posting here is that while I’ve been trying to create and update lenses, I’ve also been trying to promote them a little more. Once I hit that publish button, I always forget to add my lenses to places where they are likely to get some traffic - and maybe snowball a little. So I took some time out to look around and look for some ideal places. As a consequence, I seem to have succumbed to a new addiction - a site called Tagfoot. What a wonderful place to share links that you’ve created and enjoy with others, while at the same time participating in a very friendly community, reading and commenting on their link submissions. There are lots of Squidoo lensmasters on board, some I’m already very familiar with, but also others who are very new to me. It’s a great place to hang out, and the site support is second to none.

I’ve also set up a page on Multiply. There’s not a lot there yet, but it looks like somewhere where I can add some links for my lenses in order to woo a few more visitors in. Always a good tactic lol!

On the lenses front, I’ve published only nine new ones since September. I wanted to create some Christmas lenses, but time got the better of me on this score too - maybe next year

New Lenses - September:

Queen Emily: A SquidWho lens about one of the final five contestants on ‘America’s Got Talent’.

Eli Mattson: Another SquidWho lens. He was the very, very talented runner-up on the same show.

Nuttin’ But Stringz: Guess what? They were finalists on ‘America’s Got Talent’.

Kara DioGuardi: This one showcases the latest American Idol judge to join the show.

What is Guy Fawkes Night?: With all the ballyhoo about Halloween on Squidoo, I went off on a tangent and created a lens about a UK celebration, recognized on Nov. 5th.

New Lenses - October:

1980 Best Selling Singles (UK): This is the 11th in a long line of yearly music lenses I’ve created, beginning with 1970.

New Lenses - November:

The Houston Fire Fighters 2009: A wonderfully hunky 2009 calendar, showing off the best bits of the Houston Fire Fighters. This follows on from the 2007 and 2008 copies. All done for a very good cause.

Hit Christmas Songs: 1970-1979: My obsession with 70s music continues with this seasonal offering of UK chart topping Christmas songs.

The Apple iPod Classic: This is the beginning of my niche Christmas shopping contribution. I’ve a feeling this is far as my niche will go right now. We’ll see…

In November, I was also celebrating my hubby’s 50th birthday. While I published it some months before, the lens 1958 was created for him as an online present.

Groups:

Handsome Hunky Men: I have been doing a lot of updating to this Group, featuring even more of the wonderful lenses. I’m pleased to report that the Group sits at #1 in People and has been in the Top 5 of the Movers and Shakers for some time.

My own lens Group: I thought it would be a great idea to open up my own Group with just my lenses. Kind of like a lensography, only in a Group style. Something I’d recommend all Lensmasters do, particularly if you have a hard time updating your own lensography, like me!

Other Groups:

Serve & Volley Tennis Group and Great Lenses - Zero Stars Group.

So here we are in December, and not one lens published yet! After 119 of them, I’ve slowed down a little to concentrate on my other love - crocheting. I’ve been selling my designs online for some years now, but this year I’ve been a little slow getting them listed. I used to use eBay a lot, but their charges became so crippling that I decided to scale down my Store there and list on my other favorite venue, Etsy. I have a few things listed, but I have a lot more to add, so my lens creating will have to wait a little.

As I don’t know if I’ll be posting here before the 25th, I want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas season and a safe and peaceful New Year. Thank you to all those Lensmasters who have visited, commented on, starred, lensrolled and supported my lenses this year. I’m so very grateful and humbled that you have taken your time to view my work As they say “You Rock!”

Lensrank Update:

Top 100 - 0 (it’ll never happen, lol!)

Top 2000 - 4

Top 10,000 - 19

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’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)

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