Squidoo is a website launched in October 2005 by creator Seth Godin as a platform to make it easy for anyone, regardless of web designing experience, to setup and manage a single page, or lens, on a subject that they are passionate about.

Squidoo uses the metaphor of a “lens” to “focus” the reader’s attention to one particular subject at a time. These lenses focus one person’s point of view, recommendations, expertise or products and services. Lenses can be about any topic, such as politics, sports or pets. It all depends on the interests of the “Lensmaster” regarding what topic they wish to create.

A lensmaster uses the tools available online to provide links, feeds, abstracts, and lists to users who are trying to make sense of a topic. For example, a single lens could point to Flickr photos, Google maps, blogs, eBay auctions, YouTube videos, and other links. Lensmasters are encouraged to promote personal agendas, expertise, causes, products, and opinions.

Squidoo splits its revenue with its lensmasters. Charity gets 5%, the Lensmasters get 50% and the final 45% goes to Squidoo. Squidoo estimates that nearly half of all the lensmasters on the site donate their royalties to any of the 45 different charities that are supported by Squidoo.

According to Alexa, Squidoo’s traffic has grown more than 40% monthly beginning in the spring of 2007. It is now in the top 500 of all websites tracked worldwide.

Author is the creator of the My Marketing Experiences Blog and uses the Ultimate Squidoo Package to help create lenses on Squidoo.