As stated earlier I took some distance from Squidoo. And I think I did good given the poor numbers in terms of traffic but also in terms of money for the huge lot of work done through the years. December payout is going to be a small one although the end of year holiday period that always brought a lot of money to the site.
Still it seems that HQ doesn't understand how far the joke has gone - too far, of course - and that it's more than time to DO something to help the site recover at least a part of its former prestige.
Their first problem is having their older lensmasters to whether get back to create lenses or just come back to work on Squidoo although having their accounts deleted by HQ or that they deleted their accounts themselves. However with the way they were treated I seriously doubt they'd agree to do so.
Still it seems that HQ didn't understand (or receive) the general message.
Still it seems that HQ didn't understand (or receive) the general message.
Yesterday I've got my joke of the day from Squidoo. Woke up early, drank my first morning coffee cup and opened my emails.
The first one I saw was one from Squidoo. I was invited to join the contributors club. What a joke! It is not a new type of invitation, I've already got such an invite but didn't reply.
There's nothing particularly secret in this offer, it's just a standard 2-sentence invite to be part of one of their many new clubs I don't care about. But the cherry on the pie is this very standard invite. More particularly the sentence that refers to... the perks we get from being part of their new clubs.
In reality, it just literaly say: "It's a fun program with some neat perks".
That is where I need some more information... I already know these clubs require a huge investment in terms of time and work for a little, very little (or no) reward. But what are these perks? They forgot to list them.
But they might be these ones - make a lens and get this:
1. Daily dose of exercise jumping through our many hoops (exercise is good for the health),
2. Get a FREE LENS LOCK within 24 hours,
3. Struggle for a 1 up to 6 weeks journey trying to figure out how to unlock it,
4. We'll gladly unlock your lens for you after this period.
Isn't life beautiful?
More perks especially designed for you but first update your recently unlocked lens:
5. Daily dose of exercise: tears, laughter, doubts, (such exercises are good for your state of mind),
6. Get a second FREE LOCK within 24 hours after update,
7. Struggle for another 1 up to 6 weeks, etc.
8. Don't cry yet, in the meantime you'll get a cool "LOCKED" trophy,
Still not convinced? Here are some more perks:
9. Daily dose of depression,
10. We'll maybe unlock your lens and let it do its job of getting traffic and... sales,
11. In the event your lens makes you some money, we might lock it,
12. We're unsure as to whether to unlock it for you after the 6 weeks period though,
13. We'll delete your lens after the 6 weeks period (to keep the fun going on, you know),
14. Last perk: you'll get a new cool "DELETION" trophy.
Reminder, just in case:
Although we asked you to join the contributors club, be warned that if our conditions don't meet your needs, you're required to move your content else where along with yourself.
What was my reply?
I could suggest to ask my dog but she's still under shock.
1. Daily dose of exercise jumping through our many hoops (exercise is good for the health),
2. Get a FREE LENS LOCK within 24 hours,
3. Struggle for a 1 up to 6 weeks journey trying to figure out how to unlock it,
4. We'll gladly unlock your lens for you after this period.
Isn't life beautiful?
More perks especially designed for you but first update your recently unlocked lens:
5. Daily dose of exercise: tears, laughter, doubts, (such exercises are good for your state of mind),
6. Get a second FREE LOCK within 24 hours after update,
7. Struggle for another 1 up to 6 weeks, etc.
8. Don't cry yet, in the meantime you'll get a cool "LOCKED" trophy,
Still not convinced? Here are some more perks:
9. Daily dose of depression,
10. We'll maybe unlock your lens and let it do its job of getting traffic and... sales,
11. In the event your lens makes you some money, we might lock it,
12. We're unsure as to whether to unlock it for you after the 6 weeks period though,
13. We'll delete your lens after the 6 weeks period (to keep the fun going on, you know),
14. Last perk: you'll get a new cool "DELETION" trophy.
Reminder, just in case:
Although we asked you to join the contributors club, be warned that if our conditions don't meet your needs, you're required to move your content else where along with yourself.
What was my reply?
I could suggest to ask my dog but she's still under shock.
C'mon HQ. Do you really think we're ready to build new lenses, invest a lot of time, energy, work, to see our lenses locked without any kind of valid motive? Don't you realize that your many adjustments and policies didn't work and are leading the way to oblivion? Squidoo's stats are still dropping.
- Adjust your filters,
- Don't demand to violate our private life by posting our home's or families' photos,
- Don't make a requirement to actually own a product in order to talk about it,
- Don't ask for personal experience only: search engines aren't able to make the difference,
- Don't penalize us for not crediting our own photos (nothing in copyright laws require from anyone to credit their own pictures)...
- Remove or raise the link limit - ALL links are now set to no follow,
- Let us work with our own SEO knowledge - most of us are more knowledgeable than you are in this matter because we all have our own sites and own them for longer than Squidoo does exist.
As long as a lens is well written, interesting, isn't a link collection only, provides actual help or information, it should be allowed to live its life. Moreover, it's the only way for you to get your lensmasters come back and work towards making Squidoo get its prestige back.
You don't have faith in us, your most old and faithful lensmasters, how on Earth could we have faith in you?
Posted by Holly Day
I am so with you on this one. They have ruined my chances of coming back.
ReplyDeleteExactly!
DeleteI love it! Yes, Squidoo must be getting desperate ~ suddenly it wants the lensmasters back that they chased away in the first place?? Ha! Great post, my friend!
ReplyDeleteThanks :) Given the low traffic numbers in high ranked lenses, they certainly need new lenses to be done... But who would take such a risk? Hm...
DeleteDepressing. Also got the email. I have been on a "don't care much" mode since last fall. Up till then I still had some hope. Now, I just don't know anymore. My lenslet don't do well, but my long lenses with lots of products make sales..... And I get uneasy when I hear the work "perks" it rhymes with abuse....and this is what brought down squidoo in the first place. The only thing I do on Squidoo at the moment is trimming down my account to go below 175 lenses...
ReplyDeleteBoth lenslets and long lenses act the same way in my account. I think many of us are just cleaning up their collections or updating them. Unless they revamp their policies I don't have any kind of hope for the site's future. So won't waste time doing anything but short updates.
DeleteYou nailed it Holly. Keeping a sense of humor while all this is going on is hard isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI have built a niche blog for some of my ex-squidoo lenses and it is getting more traffic in a day than the lenses got in a week on Squidoo.
Also, I sold a toilet seat off what was a locked lens last week ;)
There's a lot of people still on Squidoo, as well as many who have left, who were good, intelligent people. They could see what the problems were and would have happily worked with HQ to help put the site right. The problem was (and still is) they just don't want to listen.
Sometimes it's hard AJ, in this case, it was well... hm... mixed emotions, lol. Don't they see that it's their loss than locking those lenses that make sales else where while they would have made sales for the best of the whole community? No they don't want to listen. What a pity...
ReplyDeleteActually I wouldn't be surprised if the new contributors got a bit of a pass from all the grief that's going around. Not ready to put in a bunch more work promoting other people's lenses at this point.
ReplyDeleteNot ready either but I wouldn't be surprised if they had what you think about...
DeleteI got the email too and thought they had to be joking. I've heard how much they expect contributors do. If I want to do that much work for free, I'd choose a charity to do it for, not Squidoo.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what they really expect from contributors but even with the tasks they listed earlier, I wouldn't want to join. As you say, if it's working for free, better choose a charity.
Delete