bored of education

Possible Job for HP Fan

The Gryffindor Gazette is looking for a blogger.

They haven't actually annouced they are looking. But Grace Tilton, who has written most of the posts, is trying to get into the USAF and has decided to focus on her schooling.

Since it is a b5media blog, watch for a job announcement at the Problogger Job Board. I might apply for it myself but I'm VERY involved in Squidoo (and my day job.)

I guess it would depend on what it pays. . .

Squidoo Status

I woke up this morning with a lens ranked #98 (out of 30,000).

Harry Potter Fan Art has turned out to be very popular. It has had 196 visitors, mostly in the last 18 days. Compared to other lenses I'm sure that is low.

The interesting statistic is that there have been 211 clickouts. Today is the first day the number of clickouts exceeds the number of visitors. (I was wondering whether Squidoo kept track of separate "clickouts" from the same visitor. This proves they do.) I am curious whether that will increase the rating further.

Note: The visitor/clickout stats seem to be updated in real time. The ranking and other stats update once a day. So the #98 does not reflect the greater number of clickouts. (I think they're still working on the software that updates the money stats. My money stats don't seem to match the actual amount of money they have sent me. I'm up to $1.38 : )

I'm also still on the Top 100 Lensmaster list. I think I'm at #83.

Squidoo Update

I've been busy creating lenses at Squidoo. I now have three lenses I'm somewhat proud of.

Harry Potter Fan Art is currently ranked #148 out of 30,000 lenses! While Waiting for Harry Potter 7 is currently ranked #505 and Harry Potter Music is ranked #1618.

I have also created a second account under the name Mr. Hedman. My main reason for doing this is so I can have lenses that are under construction be in one account and then transfer them when they are "ready for prime time." So I moved all of my lower quality lenses into my Mr Hedman account.

One interesting result is the three remaining lenses have a high enough ranking that I am now in the Top 100 Lensmaster list, which was one of my goals for the summer. My new goal is to see if I can stay there as I add more lenses to the Damon Hedman account.

The next lenses I plan one publishing are The Giant Squid and Jo Rowling's Favorite Charities, probably in that order.

How I'll Spend My Summer Vacation

Some teachers have their students write an essay with the title: How I spent my summer vacation. Think of this as three months early.

I know I already posted my Summer Blog Goals. But I have refined them a little. . .

I'm going to focus on three things, more or less in this order.

1. Create a set of lenses related to Harry Potter at Squidoo.com. They are all going to link to each other as well as to other websites. (Right now Waiting for Harry Potter 7 is mostly done and I hope to publish Harry Potter Fan Art this weekend.) I want to finish my current plans by July 1 and then work on promoting them during July.

2. Create a new blog about math education, higher-order thinking, etc. I want to start it by July 1. During July I want to post enough interesting content so I feel comfortable promoting it during August. I hope to be attending Blog Traffic School by then. (I had started a blog at WordPress.com but I've decided to have it hosted and use WordPress.org.)

3. Continue to maintain this blog and discuss what I learn about blog promotion, Squidoo lens promotion, etc.

Sounds like a fun summer vacation to me!

Note: I have submitted these goals to Darren Rowse' Blog Goals - Group Writing Project we'll see if they fit his criteria.

Lensmaster Ratings and Squidoo Lensrank

I just noticed some of my Squidoo lenses have been rated by other lensmasters and it makes a big difference on the lensrank.

Someone gave While Waiting for Harry Potter 7 a five star rating and its lensrank jumped from #8,458 to #2,282. Although that is not spectacular I believe the only change was the five star rating since I have done nothing else to promote it. Although occasional updates probably helped.

(By the way While Waiting for Harry Potter 7 is the lens I've spent the most time on. Feel free to check it out and give me any feedback.)

Meanwhile, A Teacher's Guide to Procrastination which has very little content, also received a five star rating. (I think someone thought my comment was funny.) Its ranking has gone from #3,010 to #2,862. It didn't change as much, probably due to a complete lack of updates.

The most interesting result is that Jo Rowling's Favorite Charities, which has absolutely no content, received a one star rating. At first I was annoyed that someone was rude enough to give a one star rating to a lens which is clearly under construction. Then I noticed that the LensRank went from #11,069 to #7,272. I guess any rating is better than no rating at all.

It has also, surprisingly, received a lot of traffic. (The stats page even claims it has raised 2 cents for charity!) I guess I should finish it and make it public. . . Although I am a little curious how good a ranking I can get without having any actual content. (I am planning on publishing it on or around July 1.)

(The math teacher in me feels compelled to figure out the formula(s) they use. The procrastinator in me realizes that it's probably complicated and not really worth the effort. Maybe I'll give my data to students and have them figure it out.)

Repost: The Latest New Thing

I had to delete this post because it offended the AdSense Terms of Service.  I removed, I believe, the sarcastic comment which was interpreted literally.

To make matters worse.  Typepad was not letting me edit the post.  It didn't work on Safari or Firefox.  I tried cutting and pasting and ended up with a double post.

So I deleted the entire thing, edited it, and am reposting it here.  The original post was made on or around April 20, 2006.

Personally I believe Google should worry more about real click-fraud and less about sarcastic teachers who aren't making any money anyway.

The Latest New Thing

I've just discovered Squidoo. It's a user created resource (like wikipedia) which is intended to earn money (like about.com). The big difference is that it is set up as a co-op. The people who contribute (the lensmasters) by building pages (called lenses) have the potential to earn money with affiliate links and Google advertising.

You may think that is already available. It is. I have both affiliate links and ads on my website.  (Deleted sarcastic comment was here and the reader can probably figure out what it was about.) But I'm not very good at following up with Amazon or Google to make sure I get paid. (Evidence that the previously mentioned sarcastic comment was in fact sarcastic.) It has been months since I've logged on to either account. (Of course it's also been months since I've made a proper blog entry...)

Not only does Squidoo handle all of those details, they are also very public about how much money is being made. During their Beta testing they raised over $2,000 for charity. After they pay their overhead they pay 5% to charity, then divide the rest among their investors and the lensmasters. Right now that may not seem like much... but...

I think it is going to grow very fast. They have made it very easy to build lenses and they are getting a lot of press. (The greed factor will also motivate its growth.)

I'm finally getting involved in something near its beginning. When I started blogging there were already about 50 gazillion blogs being written. Right now there are about 25000 lenses at Squidoo. Its exciting to be involved in something that may eventually reach 50 gazillion. If nothing else the site's growth would make an interesting math problem...

(Links to my lenses removed since I'm re-doing them.  And I'm too lazy to retype the hyperlinks. . . They didn't copy over.)

Update:  I decided to mention one of my Squidoo lenses.  It's called The Giant Squid.  Right now it is in draft form but I plan on publishing it this weekend.

Something's Rotten in Denmark

Or at least the Netherlands, or at least at MSN search in the Netherlands! I was checking my blog stats and saw incoming traffic from Nederland Search so I decided to check it out.

Someone had searched for "The leaky Caudron." One of my blog posts came up as the number one choice! One reason is that the searcher misspelled cauldron in the same way I did. (I have fixed it.) But that doesn't explain why my blog came in ahead of a page at the Quick Quotes Quill with a similar misspelling. They have been around forever and I'm surprised at the search result.

But then again, it is microsoft. . .

New Blog at WordPress

I've started a new blog at WordPress.com.

This summer I will be attending the Blog Traffic School and the teacher has advised that students use WordPress.  I have wanted to reorganize and refocus this blog for awhile, but it might be just as easy to start over. 

Although I will be maintaining both blogs, most of my new posts will be at boredofeducation.wordpress.com.  I will also be transferring some old posts from here.

I suspect that the focus and tone of each blog will evolve over time.  I discuss the focus of my new blog here.  The focus of this blog will probably deteriorate and become gossip central for my school. 

(Yeah right.  I'm always the last person to find out anything.)

Damon, Mugglenet Reporter

Wow!!!

I was the first to refer a news item to mugglenet.com. It can be read here. It involved something about a survey in Australia. . .

Anyway, I've always wondered if it was possible to beat the thousands of mugglenet readers to a news item. Well, it is! Although I think I got lucky. It was a news item from Australia and I was up late. And the mugglenet staff probably had to go to bed early to go to school in the morning. . .

Although I should have used my nickname. Everyone will think it was Damon, the mugglenet staffer, not me.

Oh well, maybe next time.

Squidoo's Bad Reviews

Today I read three posts on different blogs about Squidoo. (I ended up only writing about one of them.)

The first, by Michael Arrington, is at Squidoo: Seth Godin's Purple Albatross. His main thesis is that if Squidoo is not successful, Seth Godin will lose "credibility as an expert in product marketing." Michael then points out two main reasons why he believes Squidoo will not succeed. First of all, Squidoo lacks the authority of sites such as the wikipedia, which is created and edited as a community. Second, the income levels at Squidoo are not enough to bring in experts to create lenses.

I disagree on both points. Although individual lenses are not created by a community, the overall Squid-space is. The lenses are then ranked by factors which include the number of links, the amount of incoming traffic, etc. The better and more reliable lenses will float to the top and become the ones on which people rely. So there is a mechanism for fact checking, etc. In some ways it is just more competitive rather than collaborative. This is the same mechanism which makes some blogs stand out more than others. I think some established bloggers have forgotten that.

It is true that very little money has been made so far. I received a paypal transfer of 34 cents this month. But people forget that Squidoo is less than a month out of beta-testing. During the beta test they raised $1537 for charity.

Michael's second point is also supported by this graph of Squidoo's "Daily Reach" found at Alexaholic:

(Image deleted. It turns out fuzzy now matter what I try. I'm definitely not an html expert. The link works.)

Although he says the graph is flat I see a different picture. There was obviously a lot of interest when Squidoo was first launched because of the big jump in December. I suspect that this big jump was primarily because of Seth Godin's reputation. Everyone wanted to see his latest venture. In the following months the interest decreased. This was probably the period when new modules were being developed, bugs were being worked out, etc. People may have been disappointed given their initial high expectations. I think the more important trend is between mid-April and now. Between the low point in April and now, the reach has approximately doubled. (The graph I have exaggerates the increase a little due to the smoothing done to the data. For an un-smoothed graph go here.) Mid-April is important because that is when Squidoo came out of beta testing. If it continues to double every month Squidoo will be HUGE. (And I don't shout over very many things.)

I think Squidoo will continue to grow because from now on people will be drawn to Squidoo because of the idea, not Seth Godin's reputation. I hope Seth isn't offended but I had never heard of him before I learned about Squidoo. I am not in marketing or full-time blogging. But I am an expert in a few things and I think Squidoo is a great way to communicate my expertise.

Other blogs which have similar comments as Michaels can be found at:
9rules vs. Squidoo

The Seth Godin bubble is about to burst

The Squidoo Undo