Squidoo

As I was poking around in the realm of social bookmarks, I came upon an odd little site called Squidoo. It is basically a blog-space provider with an interesting business model.

Participants (Squidoo calls them "Lensmasters" and their modular meta-pages "lenses") post articles on any topic that interests them. The pages are monetized using Google AdSense ads, Amazon associate links, and a number of other revenue-producing programs. This money goes to Squidoo, who returns half of it to the lensmasters based on the performance of their links.

So why give half your commissions to Squidoo? After all, free blog-space isn't hard to come by. It's a fair question, and one I can't answer definitively.

Consider this before you reject the idea: You're not giving up anything but the time it takes you to turn some of your favorite bookmarks into "lenses." If your page generates some revenue fine. If not, there's no guarantee that people who bought something from Squidoo otherwise would have bought it from you. Actually that is extremely unlikely.

On the other hand, Squidoo's search-engine clout, built-in community traffic, diversity of revenue-streams, easy page creation and so on might well make it twice as easy to make a sale, which is a fair trade.

The company is a start-up, having begun recording sales for commission today. As such there are certain risks involved, but Squidoo is worth a look, if only for the education involved. Check out their home page, their FAQ, and their status blog. Then if you want to give it a try, sign up. (using this link could make you an extra $5.00)

Update: I'm getting a lot of traffic from my "Lens" My Lensmasters' Amazon "Top Ten" Lists. It's hard to tell if it's Squidoo users or Amazon associates, but so far it's just *A LOT* of "lookie Lou" traffic.