It’s been a week of G’s
October 21st, 2005 by Caryl FelicettaWhile Google blows away industry analyst’s for the fifth straight time since it’s IPO, Seth Godin introduces a whole new way of searching…and retrieving.
It’s been a good week for technology and marketing. Industry pundits questioned whether Google could turn a profit and they have, over, and over, and over…again. This is good news for everyone both inside and outside the technology world. Google has proved that it can not only dominate, but continually to do so by innovating the way we do business online.
Search has taken all of our worlds to new levels. There is not a day that goes by that we don’t “search” for something online or even on our desktop. While you might be saying, “What has Google done lately that’s so innovative?” those of us that live and breathe the Internet see the effects of anything from minor changes to their algorithm to cool stuff like their “Personalized Search” and Google Maps. O’Reilly thought Google Maps was so cool, their published an entire book on it!
So now take the whole search concept a step further and let it get into the hands of one of the marketing visionaries of our day, Seth Godin, and you get something completely different.
Squidoo, Seth Godin’s latest brainchild, is part directory, part search engine, part publishing platform. Editors are called “lensmasters” and they build “lenses” on topics. Sounds a little like About.com without the lenses but it seems a little more blog-like in nature.
For example, you can chunk out the information rather than just have lists of topics. And a Lensmaster becomes, essentially the master of that domain. They control the information they have found and are willing to share it with the rest of us. As Godin discusses in the Squidoo blog:
“For a long time, the web has been about more. More links, more traffic, more hits, more choices. In the face of all that more, many sites (and most surfers) are not getting what they want.” Squidoo promises a way to give people “less” content and links to drill through but more substance.
We await further reveals of Squidoo…in the mean time, follow the posts on the Squidoo blog, or checkout the nearly constant musings on Technorati. Also be sure to check out Godin’s free e-book “Everybody’s an Expert.”
Note: Seth Godin will be appearing in central New Jersey (Edison) on November 17th. For more information, click here.
