# Squidoo

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**Squidoo** was a revenue-sharing article-writing site. Articles were called "lenses". In 2010, the site consisted of 1.5 million lenses as of October 2010. On August 15, 2014, founder [Seth Godin](/source/Seth_Godin) announced that [HubPages](/source/HubPages) had acquired Squidoo.

## History

Development started in 2005. The launch team consisted of Seth Godin, his book editor Megan Casey, former *Fast Company* employee Heath Row, Corey Brown, and Gil Hildebrand, Jr. The first version was developed by Viget Labs.[1]

## Site structure

Squidoo was a [user-generated Web site](/source/User-generated_content) which allowed users to create multimedia pages without an understanding of [HTML](/source/HTML).[2] Godin called articles "lenses", because he saw them as "[focusing] light and [showing] us what we need to see." Writers were called "lensmasters". In Squidoo's early stages, Godin noted that [Martha Stewart](/source/Martha_Stewart) and [Jane Goodall](/source/Jane_Goodall)'s lenses did not receive large amounts of traffic, whereas lenses on [myspace](/source/Myspace) and the online game *[Line Rider](/source/Line_Rider)* were among the site's most successful.[2]

Godin announced in January 2006 that the company would start a profit-sharing system whereby lensmasters would receive affiliate income from ads they placed in their lenses.[3]

## Reception

After its debut, Squidoo was profiled in [CNN](/source/CNN), *[The New York Times](/source/The_New_York_Times)*, [MSNBC](/source/MSNBC), and *[The Washington Post](/source/The_Washington_Post)*.[3][4][5] The site was given top prize in [South by Southwest](/source/South_by_Southwest)'s community/[wiki](/source/Wiki) category in 2007.[6] Squidoo challenged established information Web sites like [About.com](/source/About.com) and [eHow](/source/EHow) for traffic, while it remained similar in unique visitor numbers to other revenue-sharing sites like [Mahalo.com](/source/Mahalo.com) and [HubPages](/source/HubPages).

## References

1. ["Seth's Blog: How to Succeed in Business (to Business)"](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/02/how_to_succeed_.html). sethgodin.typepad.com. Retrieved 2014-08-21.

1. [Interview of Seth Godin on Squidoo](http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-seth-godin.shtml) *Stone Temple Consulting*. June 20, 2007.

1. [Squidoo.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/05/AR2006010501846.html) *Washington Post.* January 8, 2006.

1. [A Home Where Bloggers Can Plumb Those Obscure Passions](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/technology/10ecom.html?ex=1302321600&en=af552cdcdbbae6e5&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss) *[The New York Times](/source/The_New_York_Times).* April 10, 2006.

1. Tahmincioglu, Eve [Beware of social networking overload](https://web.archive.org/web/20130921074947/http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25707391/) *[NBC News](/source/NBC_News)*. July 21, 2008.

1. [Squidoo Honored at 10th SXSW Interactive Web Awards](http://www.viget.com/blog/squidoo_honored_at_10th_sxsw_interactive_web_awards) on Vigit Labs. March 14, 2007

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Squidoo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squidoo) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squidoo?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.