Another LensRank Tweak? Not exactly...

No, we didn't have a new moon yet... In February the new moon is on 18th, we have to (?) wait two more weeks or so.

There was some action, though, and all of my lenses were around 25,000 - 28,000 early in the morning, but later that bug was fixed and the current results don't differ much from what we've been seeing since Jan. 23, 2007.

In general, it looks that eveything returned to "norm", however, there are a few new and returning lenses that were not present in Top 100 lately. It may mean that there was indeed a minor algorithm adjustment after all...

So what are those interesting lenses? Well, imagine "Michelangelo's David's" return - at #50 or much, much higher - at #4 "SquidLens: The Official Lens on Squidoo", at #47 - "National Parks and Monuments", or at #97 - "A DAY FOR HEARTS - Congenital Heart Defects Awareness Day". We'll have to wait and see if it means a higher weight in the algorithm for the content. That would be very positive...

We also had today a very unusual case - at #63 "Valentin Elizalde (Hoy en lugar 64)" - a lens in Spanish. It has some "videosense" content, but I don't think the author has very close ties to the party that I call here "the videosense group".

So the count today is: "illuminati" - 26, "videosenses" - 7, "affiliates" - 6; 39 in total. Nice gain for independent lenses - from 54 on Jan. 23, 2007 to 61 today!

Ilona Zuzalek
Getting Married In Las Vegas - Romantic, Extravagant, Or Just Convenient...
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

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Dealing With The Super Bowl Hangover

According to a popular Super Bowl Indicator legend, the result of yesterday's Superbowl will have impact on stocks...

Whose stocks will go down? I have few candidates...

This article is not fresh (from the last year), but it has a lot of interesting information about the Superbowl Monday phenomenon. Just look at the resources at the bottom of that article from Snopes.com. Even such heavy hitters like The New York Times or The Washington Post were writing about it! Go to:

The Super Bowl Indicator

Happy reading!

Ilona Zuzalek
Getting Married In Las Vegas - Romantic, Extravagant, Or Just Convenient...
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

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What's new in Squidoo's Top 100?

Not a big change, but there are some interesting developments - as always...

Although it looked that Gil was only joking when he said after the last tweak (it happend on Jan. 22/23, 2007): "Every third sunday we keep the lensrank algorithm on 'random' just to screw everyone up :-)" it seems that the current LensRank algorithm is here to stay... At least until next third Sunday, most probably.

So, what do we have now?

Independent lenses made some progress - at the expense of "illuminati", whose share decreased from 30 lenses to 26.

Also the "affiliate marketing group" got some advantage over the "videosense group". While both had 8 lenses each on Jan. 23, today videosenses have 6 lenses in Top 100 and the affiliates - 9.

In other words, the independent lenses presence in Top 100 increased from 54 to 59.

Among the "illuminati", relache has huge lead - 14 lenses, jeffryv has 5. He beat MrLewisSmile who has now 3 lenses in Top 100. The other Citizens in Top 100 are: KimberlyDawnWells - 2, boredofeducation - 1 and oniyagi - 1 lens.

I don't count here Alumni Citizens, but something tells me that I should... Maybe soon I'll change that.

There are interesting developments lately among the "affiliates". That group has a few new rising stars - Barkely even made it today to Top 100 as a newcomer.

Today's Top Rookie - the highest new lens in Top 100 by LensRank is at #71 Toe Socks. It is surprising to me, because the lens itself and its numbers don't fit Megan's recipe for success: she said, a good lens should have great content, be handmade, well promoted and well talked about... So what is this lens missing? It:

• has absolutely no content - only CafePress and ebay modules, amazon plexo, empty(!) Guestbook and empty Netflix module;
• was updated more than one week ago (!);
• has only 4 ratings (5 stars, OK)
• is not on Top 100 Most Blogged and not on Top 100 Most Visited (found following jeffryv's links on his blog; not available anywhere else)

Its only"achievement" is #34 on Top 100 Most Profitable! Yesterday and 2 days ago, it had the same position on Top 100 Most Profitable, but wasn't in Top 100 by LensRank yet... In fact, it started from #37 among Profitable on Jan. 30, 2007 and is going up since then.

So it's a nice proof that it "pays" to have a profitable lens! Sure, it's always good to earn money and having a profitable lens will help you to be high on Top 100 by LensRank. It helps a lot, it seems... 39 lenses from Most Profitables are in Top 100 by LensRank and extra 10 lenses are not, but their owners have lenses that are. In total there are such 49 lenses (39+10).

I'd like to mention two lenses from Top 100 that I found very interesting - although for different reasons. Barbro at #4 is an excellent example of a lens that is very, very well done and it tells about a current news - death of a Thoroughbred colt, named Barbaro, his incredible career and tragic end after an accident. The lens is fresh and has 26 ratings - all of them 5 stars! Well done, Ghost_Moth...

The other lens that attracted my attention is at #8 - Homemaking & Housekeeping - Get Yourself Organized. It was already higher before. What is really strange, are its tags - almost all of them are art-related and none has anything to do with homemaking and housekeeping and getting yourself organized! But it must work, if the lens is so high (I have to give the lens credit, though, for its content - from this point of view, it's one of the best!)...

Another strange thing is that this lens doesn't have an Adsense ad in the sidebar - like all others lenses have (except for two more lenses in Top 100) and its two Adsense ads have background while other lens don't have. And it is not as wide as other lenses. Fascinating... Will other lenses get also get such fix? But why one of the Adsense ads is gone?

Ilona Zuzalek
Getting Married In Las Vegas - Romantic, Extravagant, Or Just Convenient...
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

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What illuminati know and we don't...

It pays to read blogs...

I've just found this interesting post by jeffryv on his post of Jan. 28, 2007 at "Lensmastering" blog:

Lensmastering: Other Top 100 Lists

That post shows that even though the Most Visited and Most Blogged disappeared from the rankings presented to the public (since Jan. 22 or 21, 2007), they are still being prepared and Jeff has access to them. Other Citizen Squids possibly too (see the "shhh"). Other - regular - lensmasters don't...

Top 100 by Rating (star system) was officially gone long ago. Top 100 Lensmasters (by Average LensRank) - which has - in my opinion - very negative impact - was discredited ages ago...

So why does jeffryv blogs about those categories? Is it an indication they they are still included in the current LensRank algorithm? No wonder Gil jokingly calls it a "screwed up" version...

Ah, talking about Gil and his famous sense of humor - if you go to Jeff's blog, you'll see "Staff Favorites". The only lens listed there is "All About Gil" by giltotherescue!

Ilona Zuzalek
Getting Married In Las Vegas - Romantic, Extravagant, Or Just Convenient...
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

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Should Jeff be unhappy with my post about Topics and tags?

HQ introduced today new set of categories (Topics) and posted them with examples of tags. I realized that there must be something wrong with those tags, or rather with the lenses they were coming from - the lenses were simply wrongly classified, many of them...

So I wrote at the Forum and presented some ideas, it was like these:

"Here are my proposed changes to newly-established Topics:

Animals & Nature
dog, animals, cat, charity
Remove: charity. Add: birds, bird-watching, aquarium, pets

Arts & Literature
arts, art, music, photography
Remove: photography. Add: TV, theatre, radio, painting, sculpture

Cars & Trucks
cars, autos, car, recreation
Remove: recreation

Business
marketing, business, money, internet marketing
Add: real estate, investing, trading, forex, small business, home business, WAHM

DIY & Hobbies
home, real estate, family, gardening
Remove: real estate. Add: crafts, photography, home improvement."

It's apparent from the listings of the lenses in many of the categories that people either do mis-classification on purpose (to avoid competition) or do that by mistake. I wanted to help them and gave a number of suggestions for most of the Topics - so that they classify their lenses properly and - as I wrote - so that "we built together "a social database - a human index of the best stuff on a given topic" - just like Seth wrote in his book "Small Is The New Big"."

But suddenly, a fireman-on-duty - jeffryv - appeared and he looked quite annonyed (did I disturbed his slumber?) either by my stubborness in promoting reasonable and accurate classification of lenses or by my messing with his nomen-omen pet project... Here is what he wrote:

Hi zuzanna

Re:Topic tags

As I mentioned to you before the words (Tags) under the Topic headers are ever changing tags.

( The most popular at that moment)

Try it out. click on one and you will find in the list of lens ones that are not even in that "Topic"
eg. Click the "Kids" tag under the Parenting Topic, you find me#1 with a "Animal/Pet" topic one second.

If you look at them 3 week from now they will be different, they have been changing since Squidoo started.

Cheers
Jeff

Last edited by jeffryv (Today 12:11 am)

So, the tone of it didn't sound too good and I was thinking how is he helping the public with post like that... What was his point? In fact, he just admitted exactly what I was saying before and that's why I wrote the latest post - that the lenses are being marked incorrectly! Isn't that what is he saying here :

"click on one and you will find in the list of lens ones that are not even in that "Topic"
eg. Click the "Kids" tag under the Parenting Topic, you find me#1 with a "Animal/Pet" topic one second."


Is Jeff proposing any better solution? No... He's just trumpeting that I'm repeating myself... but I'm not - as we have new categories and I was just telling other lensmasters about the best way to use it and improve it. Apparently jeffryv doesn't like the Rule #4 of the Forum - "The SquidU forum is a place for lensmasters to interact, to share ideas and inspiration (and yes, gripes... maybe another lensmaster can help) and have fun with their lenses."

But just for fun - I clicked the "Kids" tag under the Parenting Topic - exactly like jeffryv was suggesting and indeed I found him quickly (I always say Squidoo is very fast!). But he actually was #1 - "Learning Letters and Numbers Resources"!

Not exactly a "Animal/Pet" topic, but kid-related indeed. So I really don't know who of us is winning at this point of this forced argument, but the truth is the second lens under tag "home" was not Jeff''s, but GramaBarb's Golden Retrievers - Dogs with Hearts of Gold I think I'll admit here for a second that jeffryv was right here, but in fact he "borrowed" the lens from Grama to show me... It absolutely is a "Animal/Pet" topic, although that great lens should be rather under Animals & Nature Well, I'm always pro-family, I like pets and I like both of those lenses very much so I am happy now...

But, when I look at other Topics, I'm not impressed again and that's why I erh... dared to share my ideas on the Forum. For example, as of 11:50 PM PST, here are some of the most serious misclassifications:

DIY & Hobbies has "real estate" as a second most popular tag - shouldn't it be under business?
and as a 3rd tag it has "family"! Shouldn't it rather be under "Parenting and Kids"?

Even better example(s) - the following lenses can be found using jeffryv advice by going and clicking the "home " tag that is currently the most popular tag under DIY & Hobbies:

1. UpDos For Proms, Weddings or Just Everyday by relache
2. Affiliate Marketing Tools for Social Networking on Squidoo by Writertiff
3. The Arts & Crafts Bungalow by naturalisagenix
4. Color Trends by Color_Expert
5. Perfect Paint Colors for Your Home's Interior by Color_Expert
6. MLM LEADS | MAKE MONEY IN ANY MLM!!! by briandavis

Some of them make sense, but affiliate marketing? Or MLM leads. Why? Home business? Not the best try...

And most interestingly, somehow jeffryv's tag methodology doesn't work too well and the explanations are not too good in case of #1 lens under DIY & Hobbies - Homemaking & Housekeeping - Get Yourself Organized (LensRank: 5).

You would logically expect it to be under tag "home" - the most popular in that category (strange or not), or maybe among the first 2-3 there... But they are: real estate and family and that lens - which really is one of the best we had lately in Top 100 - isn't there. And it isn't in the next 7 tags - gardening, dogs, design, property, pets, crafts, houses or further. Why? Because for some reasons, its first tag is art! In fact, most of its tags are art-related and none of them is homemaking and housekeeping-related, which is rather strange for such excellent lens...

So should jeffryv be annoyed by my writing again that something has to be done about those tags? I think that he should allow me to tell people that properly choosing the tags (of course they should depend on the content - not MLM or affiliate marketing for "home"!) and based on that properly classifying the lenses is the best way to go...

Ilona Zuzalek
Getting Married In Las Vegas - Romantic, Extravagant, Or Just Convenient...
The Beatles Songs - My Favorite Kind Of Music

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