A friend of mine confessed to me lately that he has a love/hate relationship with Squidoo. He likes the idea of Squidoo – it's easy to build lots of lenses – but hates that the line is blurry between what he should post on his blog and what his lenses should be about. The challenge he highlighted was that he didn't want to create lenses about anything, but rather about something relevant to his business. 

At the time, I was already thinking about a lens I wanted to create but hadn't refined it yet. So I went in search of some lens ideas that would solve his problem and mind at the same time.

Squidoo lenses are best when they are niche-specific: A big dollop of thought on a narrow slice of a topic. Here are a few Squidoo lens idea lists to give you some inspiration:

49 Ideas for Awesome Lenses is a great list and one I've bookmarked to go back to again and again. Some of them are silly or redundant but some of them are really compelling ideas. I particularly like #22 – "What have you researched lately" and #24 – "Make a Twitter lens". 

Another great tool (which is also addictive, believe me) is the Squidoodlr, a lens idea generator. I spun it a few times to read its suggestions: "Bowler hats", "Baby's First Haircut", "Strange Sea Creatures".

Since Squidoo is one of the top 500 most-visited websites in the world, why not consider making a couple of lenses as part of your 2010 business plan!