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As the web has developed over the past decade, what you know (content) and who you know (links) have become established signals for helping people find and use information they need.

In the past two or three years a new breed of signals have quickly developed. In their infancy they took the form in social networks such as Bebo, MySpace, and Friendster. As the area has matured, the real value has emerged in the form of platforms that help enable communication and the transmission of ideas in new ways – the platform.

Some of the new platforms that are making up the web have the potential to be incredibly powerful. Sites and tools like Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo’s Open Services, Amazon’s service and cloud computing options, etc are providing unprecedented levels of raw data, resources, and reach to individuals.

Companies that don’t understand and leverage the third leg of the new web (platforms) are going to find themselves falling behind. However, I have a feeling that the drop off won’t be slow and lingering like many business cycles in the past. The new tools provide power to too many people, too easily.

These powerful new tools have one area that is wide open right now, and maybe Squidoo can fill that void. Distributing your content by leveraging these new platforms may sound easy, but it’s still very difficult to reduce the signal to noise ratio when everyone else is distributing massive amounts of content using the platforms (and it’s already begun).

What is needed is a filter. Some human intervention perhaps.

I think that whoever figures out how to leverage TwittrStrm (or any lens) to capture the essence of a conversation and then is able to reach people that care about that conversation through Facebook (and others) is going to be able to effect change in a big way.

Can Squidoo use it’s platform to help crystalize, filter, and provide perspective on the huge flood of data that’s flowing through these other platforms?

Can you?

I’m Proud to introduce SquidTop!

What is SquidTop?

Squidtop is a site that allows you to create your own blog to talk about your squidoo lenses, accomplishments, progress, or any other topic you desire. What’s unique about it is a custom interface that allows you to update your blog with short little posts like twitter/pownce updates like so:

There is also a fully featured back-end built on wordpress, allowing you to create in depth posts about whatever you would like!

Other Cool Features

Twitter Integration – Simply add your Twitter RSS feed to the ‘Options’ page in your admin area to display a list of your recent twitter posts.

Adsense Revenue Sharing - I designed a custom adsense revenue integration into the site. Your blogs receive 80% of the impressions while Squidtop receives the other 20% to cover hosting, maintentance, etc. To activate it, go to your options page and insert your google publisher ID and your ad_slot number so google can track it. That’s it! you’re all set up.

Recent News - The front page of Squidtop shows the most recent posts made on the site by any blogger. This means that when you post updates, you are visible front and center for all the Squidtop vistors to see!

How to Sign up for Squidtop

Just head over to www.Squidtop.com and click on the big blue sign-up button. The whole process takes less than 5 minutes before you can have your very own blog to talk about your lenses on!

What are you waiting for? Give it a try!

Let me know what you folks think and if there are any obvious improvements that you would like to see in the site.

Now, this captain sails a fast ship but things are obviously moving at breakneck speed.

Hold on to the ride and we’ll see what works .