As the creator of the Sudoku lens, let me tell you my experience.

I've now built four different lenses on Squidoo. I started not knowing what to expect with no particular business purpose. My first lens was on Marshall McLuhan, former patron saint of Wired. I didn't expect this to be popular, but thought it might be useful for my work-in-progress on McLuhan's Laws of Media. At first it was a way to publicly organize my research. This was rather static, or so I thought.

My Sudoku lens was built with a more public audience in mind. I had been working on a Sudoku site www.allsudoku.com and had found some sites and feeds that really did not fit on my site. It also gave me a chance to see how my site could be used to supply content to Squidoo. (This is where I think the web is going: subscribing not surfing pages.) In particular I knew several good Sudoku game feeds.

I then built a Lens on Christmas Ales and Beers. I have a vintage collection and was interested in exploring what was on the web. So as I surfed I put together the lens. I also used it to test the format of lenses.

SURPRISES

First, I was very surprised that my Sudoku lens was in the tip 10. It is a fun ride.

Second, I'm surprised at how often I go back to my lenses to read them and update them. The lens itself becomes a research tool for updating the lens.

There is a lot unknown about Squidoo. Improvements will be made as will mistakes. In summary, like blogs Squidoo is a very interesting new web format worth exploring for personal and business use.