Competing for the top lensrank = earning charity dollars. I've just taken a look at the Top 100 listed lenses in several categories. Some rather surprising lenses -- no, I didn't have the time to visit each and every one of these. In some categories, I'm seeing multiple lenses on the SAME topics -- I personally would like to see more of a variety. And, be a little more topical on the topics; i.e., if holiday related and the holiday is past. ;)The lure of many a new lensmaster joining Squidoo can probably be chalked up to the enticement of sharing in the thousands of dollars that some lensmasters say they are earning each month. There are plenty of ebooks out there instructing lensmasters how they can earn boatloads of money online. This is a tough economy; people have financial issues and are watching their budgets. I personally wouldn't want to get wealthy at the expense of putting another person in debt. But, that's me.
I'm of the belief that you need to "show me the money" before I believe all those claims about lensmasters or affiliates making thousands of dollars a month. I can believe that some lensmasters are making $100, $200, $300 or possibly $400 per month off their lenses -- but it is becoming less of a viable earning platform when you consider that you are competing with over 850,000 lenses rankling for a lensrank in the Top Tier which might pay $10-$11 for that position. Remember, the Top Tier only encompasses the top 2,000 lenses.
The enticement to join Squidoo has also brought with it some pretty spammy and non-quality lenses, recently referred to as SquidJunk. Well, I don't like spam and I surely don't like junk. Thankfully, there are efforts underway to address the spam and the junk -- thank you!
OK, here is what I propose and I'm sure this will be received with mixed reviews. Change the lensrank tier position royalties to automatically default to charity. Let the lensmaster select which charity or charities they would like to earmark their royalties to benefit. That could be the first step ... how do you feel about this?
9 comments:
Actually, I think doing that would be a disincentive to produce quality lenses.
There are people who really depend on that tier income for basic bills and work hard to keep lenses in the upper tiers for that reason. If that incentive were taken away, those lensmasters would have to look elsewhere for a way to earn a living and their good lenses would go away. Likely they would be replaced by true SquidJunk by virtue of search engine hits on keywords finding lenses on popular, albeit spammy/junky, topics.
I absolutely agree with you that there are some junky lenses in the top 100 of many categories. I doubt those lensmasters care much about the tier earnings but are looking for affiliate earnings. The fact that they get traffic and clickouts ends up making them rise in lensrank, just coincidentally. I'd rather see good lensmasters encouraged to make more and better lenses as a way to overtake the junk-builders. A good way to encourage that is by allowing those lensmasters to make a living (for themselves or for charity). A hundred dollars goes a long way when your electricity is about to be shut off or your car repossessed.
Susan,
Thank you for your insightful post. I appreciate your thoughts and comments.
Looking through the various categories, it is easy for anyone to notice that the SquidJunk seems to be breaking into the Top 100 across the board, driving down the lensrank and visibility of worthy, more quality and content-driven lenses. How can this issue be remedied? Can this all fall on the shoulders of the Squid Angels who are of a limited number and who are human?
Is there no other objective evaluation or criteria? Now with more lensmasters promoting outside of the provided modules to drive their affiliate income, you get the possibility of a single lensmaster with multiple accounts occupying those LIMITED top positions. In theory, spreading the wealth then goes to a few.
What is the answer to this situation of striving for more transparency, authenticity?
Wish I had the magic answer. Patrolling the top 100's is a duty of the SquidAngels, as you know. It's tough to keep up with junk, plus judging a lens as junk is somewhat subjective. Blessing worthy lenses UP, rather than continuously seeking out and dinging the junky lenses, is a good approach but won't solve the problem. As for an objective method, especially an automated method, of determining junk, I'm not sure that is possible; detecting spam is a lot easier than detecting junk.
With the number of lenses and lensmasters increasing daily, I don't know what the answer is and don't know what will solve the problem, but certainly with growth there will be more and more problems that will have to be addressed. I guess the best we can do is encourage SquidAngels to do their jobs (I know I have a hard time finding time to do a really good job) while encouraging good lensmasters to make better and better lenses. An emphasis on quality over quantity might be a good start.
Susan,
You know I'm not sure there is any magic bullet or perfect solution. What you say is true, I've been there myself as a Squid Angel -- taking time out of updating my lenses to try and keep an eye on the Top 100. With all the angels visiting the same lenses to see if they might be quality lenses maybe if the job was split up so that this job wouldn't be overwhelming? I don't know.
Yes -- I couldn't agree with you more that the emphasis should DEFINITELY be on quality NOT quantity. As I've got quite a few lenses, I know some of mine aren't perhaps as stellar as the others -- there is an eclectic variety that I've created over 3 years time. Now that I am more experienced, and when I have the time, I try to improve the quality of my lenses that might need it. ;)
Some of your lenses (and mine) might not be stellar, but I'm positive you have no junk. :)
Susan -- you have a great sense of humor too! You and I know that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' and one man's junk is another man's treasure -- but let's hope that 'junk' does not happen to be a 'lens.' ;)
Thank you for saying so -- as I wouldn't think you'd have any either.
In my opinion, and I have expressed this on SquidU before, since there are more and more lenses, there ought to be more opportunity for people to get into the Top Tier.
Over the last 6 months I see the payout per tier for the top 2 tiers increasing month after month, yet the Top Tier is still limited to only 2,000 lenses.
Since some lenses have stayed there for a year or more, due to the subject matter and not necessarily due to quality, it is increasingly harder to attain the goal of reaching the top and keepoing a lens there on average lensrank for a month.
I know a few lensmasters, including myself, are getting disheartened in having fewer lenses there each month.
In the last year the payout has gone from $9/lens to almost $12/lens. I would have thought it more of an incentive to retain the payout fixed at $10/lens and to increase the size of the tier depending on the money to be distributed, since more and more lenses are contributing to the profit.
Ditto the 2nd Tier, where the payout has almost doubled. Well maybe this doesn't need to be increased, but if it's smaller because the Top Tier has increased, why not adjust the payout for the 3rd Tier, which has remained at a puny 8cents all along.
There are plenty who keep telling me that the payout is not everything, that you can earn more from affiliate sales etc, but this isn't working for many of us, so the only income we are getting is from the payouts.
To those who have 20 lenses in the Top Tier, if it was expanded to 2,500, they could easily get 25 lenses in there and if so would be better off anyhow.
For those who have less than 5 in the Top Tier, or even none at all, just getting one lens in there might inspire them to go on to greater efforts.
I think of this as my concept for a Squidoo Stimulus Package.
So what do you think?
Tony, some great ideas. I would agree that with the hundred of thousands of lenses, that it is more difficult than ever to get into that Top Tier of 2,000. Yes, some lenses have occupied top status for quite some time. Is it only the traffic keeping them there OR is it something else?
I like your suggestions, Tony. Maybe a combination of increasing the size of the top tier and increasing the payouts of all three tiers (two and three increasing more than one) would indeed stimulate quality lensbuilding.
Julie, it may be a combination of things keeping the top lenses at the top, but exposure that comes with being at the top creates more traffic (at least from within Squidoo), thus perpetuating high lensrank. However, a lot of lenses that have been seasonal or even just temporary hot topics do rise high and then fall quickly, so to me that demonstrates that the system must be working. Whether there's "something else" involved, I don't know. I just know that I work really hard to keep my best lenses up there.
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