How do you make sense of the Internet noise that's coming at you from all directions?

According to Seth Godin's Squidoo.com…

Searching online should really be called poking online. Because that's what you do. You poke around. You poke in Google and you poke at some ads. After looking at a bunch of links and pages, then, finally, you get it. You understand enough to take action—to buy something or make a decision. The thing is, this takes a long time.

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.

Their goal at Squidoo is to leverage the power of personal recommendation online.

That's an awesome goal, but my first visit to Squidoo left me muttering, "Huh?" I couldn't figure out how it worked. It's like being a PC user in a Mac environment with all the cute names for everything, but I just wanted to get in, do it and play. Instead, I had to do something I hate to do … I had to read the directions.

Squidoo has what they call Lenses. I call them web pages or blogs. They're listed in Lenserolls … so, in my mind that's something like a Blogroll. I came across a Lense that helped me a lot How To Squidoo.

Lensrolling is a way to share the love and create your own personal lens network. List your friends' lenses, relevant lenses on your topic, or even link to other lenses by you!"

Another must read page is thier Squidoo FAQ. There you can read about Modules, which according Squidoo are…

Modules are the building blocks of lenses. A module makes it easy for a lensmaster to point to links, images, blogs or even things to buy. Some modules are curated (you enter all the links and content manually) and others are automatic (you configure the inputs and then the lens draws on RSS feeds to update your lens without any work from you). Similarly, some modules are commerce-oriented and others are just content based.

See how this is like learning a whole new language?! But it's well worth the trouble. PC World calls Squidoo one of the top 25 websites to watch, so clearly reading the directions is going to be well worth your time.

Once you're up and running on Squidoo, you'll want to read the Hot Traffic Tips and Advice from Top Squidoo Lense Masters on how to drive that traffic to your Lense (aka web site).

Do You Squidoo? Try it!

Update added 7/11/07

Read a good post on Squidoo Lens and spamming and wanted to share the link with you.