I interviewed Seth Godin on the “Squidoo Slap”

http://www.searchingdot.com/2007/07/17/interview-with-seth-godin-on-the-squidoo-slap/

Wish me luck!

There seems to be nothing in the store. according t Squidoo there is no erchandise worldwide on middle earth or Eowyn. Since there are tons of dolls an collectibles form the movie, that’s crap.

Worse ,when you widen their contact pool by distributing your lenses to the modules you created, there is no link, browsers have to sn up and register!!!

what a scam.

Just like he did here, Seth responds to criticism by accusing the blogger of being emotional. In this case, the blogger was raising some good questions about the Squidoo model and why Seth was calling not-for-profits “clueless” for not embracing it.

He will be speaking at a marketing event in central NJ (Edison, about 40 min from NYC) on Novemeber 17th. It’ll be interesting to see where Squidoo is at and what he has to say. More info on Seth Godin event here.

1 – It is so many things integrated together that there is no frame of reference for it really – I mean if you called it a Personal Knowledge Portal would that sound better? It might be more descriptive, but it barely scratches the surface of the impact. It is search, it is blog, it is tagging, it is conversation, it is annotation,it is reputation engine, it is ad-hoc collaboration and so much more, all tied together in a neat little bow that makes it pretty and appealing to average everyday business people – you know those people who dont care what language it is written in, they just want to know that it works.

2 – the biggest problem with search and relevancy is that it is a mostly unstructured data set – our most asvanced AI has only gotten us so far and does not look to be providing the final solution anytime in the near future. The true key to search relevancy lies in the right hemispehere of the human brain which provides context A Whole New Mind provides good reference points on this. So to really create relevancy take the best elements and put them together – the best aspects of search tech with the power of the human experience.

3 – now throw reputation into the mix along with trust and ego

4 – connect with people’s passions

5 – Check out one of Squidoo’s comeptitiors Wink and find the common thread

6 – Wikipedia is a great encyclopedia, but does not address the question of a persons expertise, the accuracy can be somewhat in question and the interface is unwieldy to an average, non technical person

7 – people have been wandering around the web spreading their knowledge and reputation, but it has never been connected properly to build value – just like I am writing this here instead of posting on my blog because I want my thoughts to be heard in the conversation and I am not guaranteed that if I just post to my own blog – but how cool would it be if what I was sharing here was posted to this conversation, my personal blog and my company intranet? without having to do anything more than hit submit…

8 – yes it is blog like, but it appeals to those beyond the early adopters, which is really the brilliance of his messaging “everyone is an expert on something, even if it is only yourself” – spent a month trying to figure that one out and the best I came up with for Insyes was “be known for what you know”

9 – the brilliance of the business model is the use of a Co-Op structure ala REI – the members not only belong, but they are part owners who share in the revenues – the more they contribute, the more they get from it. While the actual dollars are unknown, my best is that it will pay better than AdSense does for people like me

If you take a look at the entire situation surrounding conversations, knowledge, connections, relevancy, community and publlishing, you will see that the approach thus far with regards to Wikis, Blogs, SocialNets and everything else is very nascent and not even addressing 20% of the problem yet. Worse still, most of those things as they exit today were created with a technological feature focus for early adopter tinkerers rather than having a human dimension at the core. In short, they are cool technologies, but not close to being mature solutions. From what I read and understand about Squidoo, ths is a huge step in that direction.

I dont know about the execution, but the idea is right on target and will begin to change things quite dramatically within the year. Especially since, like RSS readers, many competing entries are beginning to emerge and this will one day soon have its own ‘namespace’ in the lexicon of the tech industry and be treated by analysts just as portals once were.

I put a very rudimentary flash file together to model the discovery, use and sharing of knowledge that is more of a holistic view on the issue. It may not look good, but I think it makes a good point.