Take that Spammers!

I've had it up to here with poorly made lenses! And here's why...

Whenever one of my new lenses sheds it's Work in Progress status, the first thing I do is start searching related keywords and topics so that I can create a nice, juicy lensroll. I love the lensroll tool a lot. Most of the lensmasters that I recognize and interact with regularily I've met by finding their lenses on one of my keyword hunts. I think one of the things that makes a lens great is how many other lenses are in that little sidebar, and how many of them would be of direct interest to anyone who is reading that lens.

For instance, when I made my Top Ten Movie Vampires lens, I went looking for other content related to the films and characters that I had highlighted. I was really pleased to find a bunch of great lenses about "The Lost Boys" that were fun and interesting to read.

Sadly, I would say that at least 65% of the lenses that I look at for possible 'rolling are not even worth the bandwidth they're written with. The introduction draws me in, hoping that I'll find some thoughtful content that teaches me something new about the topic. But once I scroll down, all I find is a variety of non-written modules showing different things related to the topic. It's as if people start up the workshop and just add one of every keyword driven module possible - give or take an Amazon or two.

For example, when I made a lens about Christmas movies, I wanted to find a lens that was just about "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". I looked at about 10 lenses, and most of them were just a bunch of Amazon and eBay modules of Grinch movies, books and toys. Eventually I got so fed up that I didn't even want to search for any of the other movies I had written about on my lens.

It reminded me of The Best Squidoo Lens NOT To Do. This parody is about lenses that are just landing pages for webstores, a place where tasteless people try to get you to buy their stuff. While these pages are annoying, at least they're trying to hock their own products, and not cash in on hapless Google searchers. I've seen so many of these keyword sales lenses, I've started making a note of checking out the makers' bios - they're so identical that I'd swear it's one person making them!

I decided it was time to shine a spotlight on the stupidity of these Giant Squid wannabes. They churn out worthless lenses, hoping to get some recognition and cash, meanwhile wasting the time and patience of those lensmasters who actually take their Squid responsibilities seriously.

So I made this: The Worst Lens Ever Made

Enjoy!