A Couple of Things to Think About

I tend to steer clear of the heated forum debates, but a couple of fairly length threads have caught my eye over the last few days.

The first one was about monsters, the professional image of Squidoo and all sorts of other stuff that got dragged into the conversation too. In my rare appearances in the more debate-y type of threads, I've said publicly that I like the monsters, as a self-motivational tool - it encourages me to participate in the community, increase the interactivity of what I write and above all else, build more lenses.

I don't mind that other lensmasters see them too - other peoples achievements motivate me to work harder and maybe someone viewing my lensmaster page will take similiar motivation from it. Do the monster badges look professional to an outsider looking in? I think we probably give ourselves too much credit for how much the average visitor notices. Visitors/readers are there to find the information they're looking for quickly and conveniently - I don't believe many even see the stuff that goes on round about.

Which kind of brings me on to the second thread worth a comment - all about how less is more on lenses. Agree entirely with the sentiments on that one. When I read lenses - which I do a lot - it takes a really good 'long' lens to get me to read all of it. BUT, and this is the important point, I regularly read every word on the page on short lenses.

If I was more diligent in keeping stats, I'm sure I could prove to you that my short lenses, about single products sell more - or at the very least that time invested in them yields a greater return. The lenses of mine that tend to sell are - here's some brief information on a SPECIFIC product, a few videos, a few more details, some interaction (usually polls), and here's where to buy it. (I might talk about why I think polls work so well for selling stuff another time). Anyway - I'm nowadays firmly in the 'short and sweet' camp.

Happy Lensmaking, and it wouldn't be a blog post without mention of at least one new lens, so off you pop and try an Iconic Toys and Games Quiz ;)