A colleague of mine sent a link to Squidoo, a website that she called “a website that combines wiki and friendster.” She wasn’t far off. I’ve read about Squidoo on and off for a few weeks now, but hadn’t yet taken the jump over to the site to check it out, which I did today.

Squidoo is a website that allows users to create “lenses” - pages that encapsulate subjects they are both interested in, and want to share their knowledge with others. At first glance, the interface is a little overwhelming, but a quick click on the “Top 100” lenses shows subjects that are delightedly varied. Some of the Top 100 lenses include topics such as Moleskine Resources, Creating a Custom MySpace Overlay and Martha’s Cookies 101 in addition to more standard techie topics such as RSS feeds, Torrent sites and Blogging 101.

The one element that Squidoo has that may provide it a leg up on Wikipedia is that you can learn a little about who is providing you the information - and most individual lens creators I’ve looked at today are very open about who they are and where they come across their information. This may provide users with the ability to cite information - without coming back a week later and learning that it has been changed. At the same time, I’ve already come across two competing lenses on Moleskins (and if someone can tell me when these got popular, I’d be a happy camper), which might lead to a “dueling banjo” situation as users present information to the public.

Quick work warning to the wise: If you don’t have time during this busy week before the holiday to spend a few hours jumping from lens to lens looking at stuff - wait until the holidays.