I'll never get over how quick you guys are!

Here's something I just posted about it on the SquidBlog.

http://blogs.squidoo.com/squidblog/2009 … o-dot-com/

Christene wrote:

but i miss the Giant Squid profiles that scrolled across the top

You know what's funny? When we put the last homepage up, with all the Giant Squid faces, I got flooded with email from unhappy Giants who didn't want their mugs up there, front and center.

With this new homepage, interestingly, a lot of focus is still on the Giants, since most of them have lenses in the top 5 spots per category.

Hi Cinetech,

The new home page should be live for non-logged-in users, as well.  Are you seeing the collage when you're viewing http://www.squidoo.com?

The collage will be coming down soon (it's basically a 404 redirect page right now). 

Thanks,

Josh

I would like to see it rotate through the categories that aren't currently being displayed!
The look and fill I like very much! Looks nice and clean!

No, I don't care for it.  Too much information.  It doesn't have 'curb appeal'.

I love it!  Don't clutter it up with other stuff.  I think those of us who have been using Squidoo for awhile would be okay with it, but somebody landing on the site for the first time will get overwhelmed and confused.  I love that front and center you can tell what Squidoo is all about -- two things.  Either make a lens or search for info. Nice and simple.  Thanks so much!

Love the nice clean look. Is that all of the categories? I don't see TwttrStrm, for one.

Its a good look, but I also liked the giant pics on the front too.

As a Giant, I'm very happy that more people are getting featured than just the lucky few.
More importantly, I'm glad that the homepage now shows what is available on Squidoo and gives visitors some way to find lenses besides search.

Before, the homepage told you Squidoo was cool, and talked about Squidoo, and about some of the interesting people who use Squidoo... but random visitors were left wondering, "Okay, so, what's actually here?" There were links to Giant profiles, but it took a few steps to get into lenses. There was no directory of lenses. The only way to start finding lenses was to type something into search. Which was fine, but search is all about finding a specific thing and leaving once you've found it.

With a directory of topics, people can BROWSE and DISCOVER more Squidoo lenses than before. You may find categories and lenses you'd not thought to search for.

That's great! It's a huge improvement.

Giving visitors the option of exploring Squidoo by browsing as well as search will make it far more obvious to first-time visitors that Squidoo has a ton of pages on various topics. It will send more traffic directly to more different Squidoo lenses, without a few extra steps to get there. It will get more CLICKs on all Squidoo lenses, which means -- pragmatically speaking -- it will probably bring in more adsense revenue.

Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

So yay to making Squidoo so much more accessible to the general public, more usable, and more visible.

The interface looks a little busy and generic, but that can be tweaked .
I'm wondering if there's some way to have all the categories showing, but again, that's fine-tuning. The content is the thing.

And back down to earth... how long has SquidSports been there? Feh, I've got a lens that belong in it. Oh well, almost time for tonight's game!

Last edited by Greekgeek (04/07/2009 6:29 pm)

Greekgeek wrote:

Giving visitors the option of exploring Squidoo by browsing as well as search will make it far more obvious to first-time visitors that Squidoo has a ton of pages on various topics. It will send more traffic directly to more different Squidoo lenses, without a few extra steps to get there. It will get more CLICKs on all Squidoo lenses, which means -- pragmatically speaking -- it will probably bring in more adsense revenue.

Exactly, my thoughts. I was begging for this change, in older posts.
The best lenses will be showcased in the home page, and get more traffic as a result.
Moreover the top lenses lists will be browsed even more.
Plus the visitor can do a search right away and explore interesting topics.
This one is a winner!

Greekgeek wrote:

The interface looks a little busy and generic, but that can be tweaked .
I'm wondering if there's some way to have all the categories showing, but again, that's fine-tuning. The content is the thing.

Great observation.
Squidoo lenses are known for being easy to read and attractive.
So why not show it? I mean, the only thing missing is the visual part.
I like to see more balance between content and graphics/pics.
Perhaps show the thumbnail for the top lens on every category?
I'm absolutely sure the page will be more intriguing and get even more clicks.
I don't think all categories need to be shown unless they can be rotated, otherwise just show
the most popular ones. However, there have to be a way to list and access all of them easily.

Last edited by Cinetech (04/07/2009 7:24 pm)

This looks better than Alltop (which i think looks very amateurish).  I would actually cut down the number of categories to simplify it a bit - perhaps even rotate them.

Greekgeek wrote:

I've been agitating for a "browse by category" addition to the front page for a long time. I think I made a thread about it a month ago.

Yup, here it is, you called it and the usual suspects were there to support
How do people find anything on Squidoo?!

Greekgeek wrote:

I think it could use a little of Squidoo's magic to make it cool-looking, and it's definitely a challenge figuring out how to balance "too much information" with wanting to make an honest-to-gosh category browsing tree, but Squidoo's pretty good at jazzing up interface once they've got the content worked out.

I hope they do. They can also ask some crafty lensmasters.