Do You Squidoo?

I came across Squidoo while searching for a new laptop bag. This Squidoo page on Funky, Chic and Cool Laptop Bags proved to be useful and fun. Here's how the site founders describe how Squidoo functions:

A LITTLE ABOUT SQUIDOO:
Squidoo's goal as a platform is to bring the power of recommendation to search. Squidoo's goal as a co-op is to pay as much money as we can to our lensmasters and to charity. And Squidoo's goal as a community is to have fun along the way, and meet new ideas and the people behind them.

It's funny how the words are in English and yet I don't know what this paragraph means. These three sentences are all that are listed under "about" before the page continues with the bios of the "cast of characters."  To be fair, there is a link under the paragraph that takes you to another page with this additional explanation:

What's this all about?

Squidoo is a hand-built collection of half a million pages built by people just like you.

Squidoo is about finding people when you care what they know instead of who they know.

And Squidoo raises big money for charity every single day by donating money from the ads and links you see on every page.

If you spend just two more minutes reading this page, we'll tell you what you need to know about us.

Thanks for visiting.

Still, from the perspective of language, this doesn't help. What does this site do? For all intents and purposes, the pages look like blogs. But instead of bloggers, they have "lensmasters." This is where people who write such copy can take a note from children: Be direct. If you want cereal, you ask for cereal. You don't say: "I want to put in my mouth spoonfuls of crispy flakes covered in yummy sugar and soaked in the white liquid that comes from cows.

I've always believed that when a topic is confusing or too conceptual, the best way to describe it is with simple language and sentence construction.

There is a lesson in everything. Now, please visit Squidoo when you have a chance. There is a parenting and kids section.

Topics: Language , In the Media , Links