Archive for October, 2010
Oftentimes, I’m sitting in the office and someone from our Publisher Services team bursts out laughing on a whim. Come to find out, it’s because they’re looking at one of the funniest sites in our network… and trust me, there are a lot of them! It’s Cake Wrecks – an entire site devoted to “when professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.” We sat down with them recently to find out what makes them tick.
What gave you the idea of Cake Wrecks?
The first cake I ever posted on Cake Wrecks, the “cake that started it all,” was actually the inspiration for the whole blog. I friend e-mailed it to me, and a little light bulb went on. I never expected anyone other than a few friends to read it though; Cake Wrecks was supposed to be purely for my “own” amusement. The fact that people soon began finding it and enjoying it and telling their friends about it was simply shocking to me. Good, of course, but shocking!
What is your business model?
Uh… well, to be honest, I don’t think we really have one. The site got so popular that we ran a few ads. Through a lot of research and trial and error, we now work with a lot of great ad providers like Lijit. Everything with Cake Wrecks has been a lot of trial and error, from the site design to the amount of content we post. Mostly I just focus on making the blog as funny and easy to navigate as possible. That’s my only real concern.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Maintaining the daily posting, without a doubt. I set a goal to post every day over two years ago and stuck to it even when John (my husband) was near death in the hospital “on the Cake Wrecks book tour.” Not to toot my own horn, but THAT took serious dedication – and it was one of the worst days of my life. Eventually I started taking some Saturdays off, although about half the time we’ll still post something then, too. Maintaining that pace and consistency has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Like anyone, some days I just don’t feel very funny. Pushing through those times never gets any easier, but the response from the fans makes it worthwhile.
What is the most interesting thing you have learned?
Hmm… well, since I’d never done anything like this before, I’d say most of what I’ve learned has been about the online dynamic. The fact that people online are cruel, and quick to judge, and bore easily. I suppose if you’re cynical you could say ALL people are like that, online or off, but online people can hide behind their screens and say the most outrageous things to you. So I’ve learned that people are surprisingly cruel, and often for no reason. But then again, I’ve also learned that people can be unbelievably kind. When John was in the ER in that hospital, we were stranded in Dallas, Texas for nearly a week. The outpouring of support and offers of help – everything from laundry service to meals – from Cake Wrecks readers was simply staggering. I learned then that a goofy cake blog can actually foster a kind of community. If you’d told me that two years ago, I never would have believed you.
Any recommendations for other publishers?
From the feedback I get from my own readers, I believe that consistent posting and a certain level of transparency – allowing your personality to shine through, no matter what the subject is – are both key. Maintaining your passion is also a must, if only so you don’t burn out and lose the will to blog!
How has Lijit helped you become a better publisher?
To be honest, the Lijit search tool has been a real life-saver for me. The Google search we were using hadn’t worked on Cake Wrecks for almost a year, and we had no way to fix it. Not being about to find old posts that I needed to reference was extremely frustrating. Having such a clean interface now… that works!… is one of those things I’ll never take for granted again.
Lijit has been heading to Vegas since 2007 for BlogWorld and this year, was Lijit’s fourth show on the exhibitor floor. We’ve been there each year!
A Favorite: As we were setting up our booth and checking in last weekend we were warmly welcomed (you know, we’re veterans) and were told for the last two years the Lijit booth has been the attendee favorite! We like to think we’re fun and do it up but this was an accolade we didn’t know and the numbers confirmed it! Gold star for Lijit.
Giveaways and iPads, Oh My: This year we coordinated a double giveaway (an iPad each day!) as we released our new Lijit iPad Stats app (available for free, to all Lijit users with an iPad-iPhone and iTouch coming soon). Giveaways are all the rave and we had fun not only doing demos of our Lijit search and advertising, but also our sharp and useful iPad stats app.
Check out these pictures to see a sampling of BlogWorld 2010 with the Lijit crew:
Fellow Boulder startup, Mike Lewis of Kapost and Lijit COO Walter Knapp trying a demo of the Lijit Stats iPad App. Keynote speech, Friday morning. Marketing Director, Sonya and Director of Product, Daniel Weiss kicking it at the booth. Part of the expo floor at Mandalay Bay. (Left to Right).
Not only do we meet lots of new blogging companies, applications, products and bloggers but we love meeting our current Lijit publishers (see, Cupcakes Take the Cake, Nichelle Stephens).
This year BlogWorld had a new food track, TECHmunch and we were happy to see many food bloggers (more than we’ve seen before in the past).
In other exciting news, we were next to the Guiness World Record Cup of Coffee (see photo above).
Thanks to everyone who stopped by the Lijit booth, your continual support and to the BlogWorld team! Until next year!
Launch of the Lijit Stats iPad Application
Oct 13th
by toddvernon in Community, Company, Lijit publishers, release announcements
This week we are launching version 1 of Lijit Stats iPad application for publishers. In the coming weeks the iPhone and iPod versions will launch (the code isn’t quite done yet) with similar functionality.
I got the idea for this several months back when we were talking with some of the early adopters of the Lijit Ad Platform. A good number of publishers using Lijit to monetize their site are one man shows. They spend most of their time writing or curating great content for their site. It’s their full time job and they are keenly aware that when they stop, so does their livelihood. One publisher I spoke with mentioned that he was often concerned when he left his house for extended periods of time that he was losing situational awareness of what was happening with his traffic. For instance, one time one of his posts was featured on the front page of Yahoo. While this should have been a great event for him, it was bad because he didn’t know it and his site ended up crashing without his knowledge.
Another individual told me that it was a matter of knowing what was trending so he could take advantage of it. For instance, when he starts getting a large number of referring pageviews for an older post, that usually means that subject is hot in the news again. He would like the opportunity to re-address the subject to capture those readers.
All these comments resonated with me. We had a full development queue so I decided to pull the CEO/founder card and light this project up as a skunkworks project. As these things go, it grew to a roar of development in the last week trying to get it done for BlogWorld this weekend in Las Vegas. Thanks to our committed development team and the promise of the 12 pack of Bud for its safe delivery we got our final build done this last Friday and submitted it to the App Store Sunday. Our previous build was from a week earlier so we are in a dead heat to see if the latest gets released by Apple before this Friday!
As Chief Beta tester I used the app all weekend to track the traffic on my blog. My blog is pretty small but receives a fairly constant stream of pageviews around the clock. This summer I saw several stops on the RUSH Time Machine Tour which I have documented on my blog. All summer I have watched my Lijit stats tell me that my main referral is from Google for “rush time machine tour”. As the weeks passed by I watched my traffic shift from city to city as the tour progressed through the US.
This weekend as I watched my real-time stats on the iPad I started to see an increasing number of pageviews coming from locations in San Paulo and Rio De Janeiro Brazil, the tour’s final stops. This weekend is the last show of the tour in Buenos Aires, Argentina and now I have started to see page views from there as well.
Another cool feature of the Lijit Stats iPad Application is the integration of automatic IceRocket queries for my blog URL. One of the reasons I receive so many hits for RUSH is due to my mention in another more heavily trafficked site, RushIsABand, that linked to me after the opening night in Albuquerque, NM. The ticker along the bottom of the app shows the last chronological mentions of my site.
While my use case for the Lijit Stats iPad Application is certainly less mission critical than our devoted publisher base, it’s awfully fun to watch readers hit my site in real-time. I am super excited by the way this turned out and I think it makes a great platform to build on as we add more situational awareness to the world of publishing.
Give it a try with your Lijit account, it’s free in the App Store and super cool. If you are at BlogWorld this weekend, stop by the booth (#324) and register to win an iPad – we are giving one away each day. Get a demo and if we are lucky we will have the beta iPhone and iPod versions to see there as well.
Tags: Lijit publishers, lijit stats, publishers, release announcements | View Comments
FOX Business Interview With Lijit CEO, Todd Vernon
Oct 12th
by Grace Boyle in Company, Featured, employees, industry
This week FOX Business made their way to Boulder to learn about the thriving entrepreneurial community and to interact with some of startups that have found their home in Boulder.
As one of the tech startups interviewed, FOX Business headed to the Lijit Headquarters in downtown Boulder, to shoot some b-roll and learn about what we’re up to.
During a series of interviews first starting at Boulder Open Coffee Club with Foundry Group (Lijit investor) Managing Director, Jason Mendelson and a second video (below) featuring Foundry Group Managing Director, Seth Levine and Lijit CEO, Todd Vernon. They settled in to talk at Atlas (a local coffee shop) about starting a business in Boulder, Lijit and the community at large.
Check it out here:
CEO: I Don’t Want a Business in Silicon Valley
Lijit Networks CEO Todd Vernon and Foundry Group Managing Director Seth Levine on starting a business in Boulder, Colorado.
Joe (who has an uncanny resemblance and adoration for Bob Dylan) came to us as one of our CU Boulder, MBA interns. He started working on our advertising operations and ad services team and quickly, in one summer, helped to assemble a system and organization to the process. At the end of the summer, here he is, a full-time employee at Lijit (while simultaneously completing his second year at his MBA). Talk about dedicated. Pull up a chair and let’s learn more about Joe, there might even be some “double rainbow” action!
What is your Lijit contribution?
I help roll out our ad services on the publisher side. It’s a lot of fun because I work with so many passionate publishers and help them get paid to do what they love – produce content.
What is your least favorite word and why?
As a business student by night, “networking” is my least favorite word. I think that the idea of networking takes away the human element that is so important in both personal and professional relationships.
What is your favorite sound and why?
The Double Rainbow guy crying. It’s so intense.
What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt and why?
Documentary Filmmaker. I think a great documentary is one of the best ways to influence people about a cause or idea –even better than business or politics. I mean, do you really want to eat a chicken sandwich after you watch Food, Inc.? Neither Bill Gates nor Dick Cheney were ever able to effect my eating habits.
Joe, dressed up as Bob Dylan
Something you’re guilty of…
Buying a pair of shoes that might not quite fit but just look too cool to pass up!
Scope out Joe online – he can be found on Twitter as @jquaglia (fyi: the “g” is silent) or writing great blog posts here on the Lijit blog.