What does Lijit mean?
Another in a series of guest posts written by Lijit employees. This time, Ningsheng Liu explains to us his interpretation of the word Lijit. As someone who is not a native English speaker, he does a great job. And yes, it is (unofficially) Ningsheng week around here.
Obviously, ‘Lijit’ is not officially an English word and naturally there is no dictionary meaning. Otherwise, my folks in China would not have asked me, “What does Lijit mean?” They are all quite capable of using dictionaries.
Do I know the answer? No and yes.
No, I don’t know what ‘Lijit’ means from a linguistic perspective. I didn’t even bother to ask my colleagues. As a name, it should be a noun but most people pronounce it li`jit, putting the accent on the second syllable. I wondered how it should be pronounced in the context of “Do you Lijit?” But it’s not important. Who cares how ‘Yahoo’ and ‘Google’ are pronounced in the context of “Do you Yahoo?” or “Do you Google?”
If I tell my folks in China, “I don’t know what Lijit means”, they would be very disappointed. In fact, a word that is not included in the dictionaries does not necessarily mean it has no meaning. Yes, I have learned the true meaning of Lijit in the past two months.
To the users of the widget, Lijit allows them to easily create their own search engine that searches their blog, bookmarks, photos, blogroll and more. With the Lijit search application installed on publishers’ blogs, readers can search all of the blogger’s content. In turn, Lijit provides users detailed statistics about those searches, so they can better understand and serve their reader community.
To investors, Lijit has a proved management team, a clear vision of business direction, an organic growth trend and a believable shot at ROI. They generally believe great people at Lijit working in a large and underserved market will discover and develop the products and services needed to be successful.
To competitors, Lijit cannot be overlooked at any point of time. Lijit is still very small but it is very strong. Lijit does not provide all the needs in the market sector but it provides unique services for what it does. Lijit is almost always a step ahead although its step is not very big.
To employees, Lijit is a family in which they spend a significant portion of their lifetime. They care about each other and learn from each other. While they may not come in with smiling faces every single morning, they do leave with smiling ones every single evening. The employees want to grow, in terms of personal and professional development, as Lijit grows.
To other people who currently do not know of Lijit today, they will learn about it very soon if they blog. Hopefully, Lijit (as a word and a service) will soon be as popular as Yahoo and Google.
Do you Lijit?
Photo credit: jovike
June 5th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I don’t know if it will ever catch on as a verb in the English speaking world. I would think that most people will immediately assume that it’s a shortening of the adjective “legitimate”, as in the song “2 legit 2 quit”.
June 8th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Lijit?
It’s a way of life.
I don’t know where the name came from. I just started lijit-imizing Wordout a few months ago, so I’m a late-comer to the party in some ways. What I know is this:
Lijit has the best ‘down-for-maintenance’ (the video) page I’ve ever seen. Entertainment that I deemed worthy of a post by itself.
Lijit is reliable. Comparing yourselves to Twitter is one thing, and I use twitter a bit myself. But the folks at lijit have made their product totally see-through. When you guys are offline, you say so, give a reason, and bring the service up really fast. I’m impressed.
Lijit is real people. I point to this article as evidence. No BS here. And I point to the video I mentioned. Real people, again. And I point to this whole site. Real people, everywhere.
I read the TechCrunch thing. And yeah, I checked out some other search widgets. Even found one that I considered switching to.
Then I thought about you guys, the real people I have briefly met. I thought about the maintenance video, the little blonde haired girl singing as she works. I thought about the whole ‘I Quit For Lijit’ concept.
I couldn’t part with you guys. I just wouldn’t feel… legitimate.
That’s why, way above the fold, in a prime piece of real estate at the very top of my sidebar you will find the words:
Wordout’s Lijit.