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As one of only a few Lijit designers, Mike Bucks has a hard time around the office. He has to defend his design sensibilities and indulge his creative side via falsetto leads of Rock Band songs. When I talked to him about doing the standard profile I’ve done with everyone else, he was somewhat offended but suggested a better idea. Why not video, he asked. So I’m proud to present our first video installation of the Get to know Lijit series…and hopefully not the last. (Also, I tried out both Vimeo and Viddler because Lijit supports both as content providers and I wanted to do some “compare and contrast” testing.)
- What is your Lijit contribution?
- What is your favorite color and why?
- What turns you off creatively and why?
- What is a profession, other than your own, that you would like to attempt and why?
- Something you’re guilty of…
And that, my friends, is your video introduction to Mike Bucks. If you want more, check out his blog for even more awesomeness.
Tags: get to know Lijit, Lijit employee profile | View Comments
This is a guest post by our Senior Director of Products and Operations, Leslie Osborne. She was kind enough (read: I forced her) to write a post about our recent company outing.
Don’t get me wrong, golf is a fine sport. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it (save for the sketchy use of plaid in golfing ensembles). It’s just not the sport for me. Never has been. Not even since that special couple of “elective curriculum” golfing days in seventh grade gym class.
I’ve always worried about this slightly during my career, wondering if my lack of golfing skills would ultimately impede my ability to climb the corporate ladder. (At one point, I was concerned that my lack of karaoke skills would impede that climb, but we’ll discuss that some other time.) So just imagine how happy this driving enthusiast was when the sport chosen to celebrate Lijit’s recent round of financing was high-performance go-karting. Yay!
So off to The Track we went on a gray, October afternoon. We dutifully donned driving suits and driving gloves and helmets and neck braces (safety first, folks) and had an amazing couple of hours flinging ourselves around a fantastically entertaining, kart-scaled road course. Some of us were fast, some of us were not so fast, but we all laughed and cheered and had a great time.
Which brings me to the thing I love most about Lijit–yes, even more so than the selfish alignment of automotive interests–is that we all genuinely enjoy each other’s company and have a lot of fun when we’re together, be that at work or at play. I think this gives Lijit, as an organization, a distinct personality (a positive one) and I’d also like to think it translates (again, positively) into everything we do. My hope is that when you visit our site, sign up for our service, install a Lijit Search Wijit, do searches, see your stats, run an ad in our new Ad Network, get an email or comment from us on your blog, or what have you, you can feel a little bit of this company’s tremendous personality shining through. And if not, well, you’re clearly dead on the inside, but we’ll keep doing good work for you anyway.
It was fun to have the opportunity to share an interest that’s near and dear to my heart with my co-workers. (I hope they all think I’m less nuts for attending high performance driving schools now.) I’m glad everyone kept the “shiny side up”, as we like to say, and enjoyed their well-deserved afternoon of offsite celebration.
I guess now all I have to worry about impeding my career aspirations at Lijit is whether or not I continue to beat Todd and Walter…
(To see even more pictures from our day at the races, check out Lijit’s Flickr photostream!)
Tags: fast cars, fun times, Lijit employees, Lijit field trip | View Comments
This is another guest post in our series written by Lijit employees. Shawn makes up the majority of our QA team and once she was hired, a collective sigh of relief was heard around the office. She was kind enough to share her thoughts on what she thinks about working at Lijit.
A short time ago, colleagues, friends, and family told me I was crazy for even thinking about working for a start-up company where nothing is ever certain. But growing up, I was always told, “You’ll never know until you try”.
So I tried, and two start-ups later, look at where I landed!
The intrigue, adrenaline rush, and personal satisfaction of working for a start-up far outweigh any disadvantages there may be. Here at Lijit, the people really make this place go. I knew it from the moment I was told that Lijit was looking to build their QA team and the Software Engineers were driving the need. Could such a place really exist, where Software Engineers and QA Engineers work in tandem to get software to the market? Why, yes it can!
There is a core group of folks here that have successfully worked together at other companies. They provide a solid foundation for Lijit. Combine these folks with the rest of us and we all bring life and career experience into a collaborative environment where we take pride in reaching for and obtaining the same goal–getting it done quickly and getting it done to a great degree of publisher and investor satisfaction. How and when we get it done can be both challenging and exhilarating but well worth the effort.
We are continuously in motion to improve upon and formalize the processes that work well for us as well as being open to processes and procedures that will help us continue to improve and grow.
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Lijit was fortunate enough to be one of the sponsors of a fantastic party that took place last Thursday, on the closing night of the DNC in downtown Denver. The Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash aimed to bring bloggers from the area together to talk about one of our shared passions: blogging. Regardless of political viewpoint, bloggers from all over Colorado (along with many out-of-town bloggers in Denver for the convention) gathered to watch Obama’s speech, eat, drink, and exchange URLs.
Since bloggers are our people, it made sense that Lijit was there. We had the opportunity to meet many publishers already using our widget and the chance to explain what we do to others. Our Lijit t-shirts and stickers were a big hit with all attendees, as were the free drinks that our sponsorship provided.
Our new friends include: Amber of Crazy Bloggin’ Canuck, Heather of A Mama’s Blog, Laura of LaLaGirl, Amy of Crunchy Domestic Goddess, Melissa of Nature Deva, Aviva of Parentopia, The Crunchy Green Mom, Hubs of Artifacting, Rosie of Rosalicious, Tessa and Michael of My Left Nutmeg, and Kath of A Likely Story.
In addition, many bloggers from the Denver/Boulder tech community showed up to attend their FIRST ever Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash, including: Aimee of Greeblemonkey and her awesome husband Bryan, Julie of mothergoosemouse, Geekmommy, Jeremy Tanner, Dave Taylor of Ask Dave Taylor, Robin from CopyDiva, Gerhard and Kary of Fling it Girl, Kit Seeborg, and the fabulous Deb in Denver.
And let’s not forget the old pals from past Blogger Bashes: Molly, Wheels, Left off Colfax, and Andy of The World Wide Rant (pictured above) who, unfortunately, is no longer blogging.
A big thanks to the organizers of this fantastic RMBB: Mr. Lady and Zombyboy, who pulled off a great event on what some called “a crazy day to have a party in downtown Denver”.
You can read other recaps of the event here, here, here, and here.
Tags: Denver, Lijit publishers, RMBB, special events | View Comments
This is another in our ongoing series of guest posts written by different employees around the office. Charlie was kind enough to help out this time and in case you couldn’t figure it out, he loves his bike. And now, with his bionic knee, he’s an even better rider.
Sure, that sounds too much like a box of chocolates, but, well, nobody would ever accuse me of being original.
- The more skill you have, the more fun you have. The more challenging a trail, the more satisfying it is. If search was easy, it wouldn’t be fun.
- You don’t always know *exactly* where you’re going.
- Sometimes there are crashes, and you have to fix your bike or the web servers:
- You have to keep moving and be able to improvise to get through the most difficult bits.
- You have to suck it up for some long, brutal climbs sometimes.
- Beer is good at the end of the day.
I’ve been riding seriously for 7 or 8 years or so, and over the years have fallen in with a group of people that are great riders, and great friends. We all ride regularly and go on weekend trips together, with different combinations of people every time. I’m not the best rider in the group, but we all like the same kind of difficulty, and are willing to work on the technical sections until we ride them clean.
I’ve known some of the people at Lijit for 15 years. These are among the most technically competent people I’ve ever worked with. We’ve worked together for a variety of different companies, in different product domains and different combinations. We all like to have a tough problem that’s worth solving, and are willing to work on it until we get it done.
That is why I ride with those guys, and that’s why I’m at Lijit.
Sure, that’s a pretty short post, but, well, nobody would ever accuse me of being too vocal. And beer is good at the end of the day.
Tags: Charlie, employee guest post, lijit | View Comments
Yet another BlogHer wrap-up
Jul 23rd
by Tara Anderson in Company, Lijit publishers, employees, events, fun
Micah and I attended BlogHer this past weekend, held in San Francisco. This was my third BlogHer event and they’ve all been unique. With a thousand attendees, the BlogHer organizers did a fantastic job of logistically insuring there was an ample amount of activities scheduled in order to have lots of opportunities to meet other bloggers and learn from them. As a representative of Lijit, it was helpful knowing some bloggers going into the event. On top of that, Lijit was mentioned on two different panels as a useful tool for bloggers. (Yippie!) And to round out our good Lijit vibes, when I told people where I worked, I was greeted with looks of recognition.
From attending a session on why mommyblogging is a radical act (shhhh…it’s because women are telling the truth) to a session on how to pursue your passion, there were intelligent and dedicated bloggers all over. I know that some women were concerned with the high school/sorority aspect of the conference, but for me, it was all about thanking the publishers who are currently using Lijit and following up with those who have yet to install. Building relationships is a HUGE part of my job and BlogHer presents a wonderful space to do just that.
I would never have started blogging if it weren’t for taking a job with Lijit and I love that because we make a blogging tool, it’s a no-brainer for us to have a presence there. (I’m thinking that next year, we might even have to get a booth!) It’s amazing how being social, striking up conversations, and meeting people can take it right out of you. I never realize how hard I work at a conference until I come home, sleep-deprived and with a three-inch stack of business cards.
Micah wrote a post about his experiences as one of the few BlogHims in attendance, while I posted some personal highlights of the trip over here.
In order to share the link love, here are some of the blog publishers that I ran into at the conference who are currently using Lijit:
Schmutzie’s Milkmoney Or Not, Here I Come
califmom
Everyday Goddess
Greeblemonkey
electromute
Send Chocolate
Whiskey In My Sippy Cup
Dirt to Dish
PHAT Mommy
Average Jane
Pause
This Mama Cooks! On a Diet
Scheiss Weekly
Greek Tragedy
Table for Five
contentious
CityMama
Queen of Spain
Mommy Needs Coffee
SecondHand Karl
MOMocrats
A Mommy Story
POP! PR Jots
Her Media
And then, if that isn’t already a great list, we’ve also had some blog publishers sign up as a result of Lijit being at BlogHer. We’d like to welcome these new users…
bad mom
Elkit in Wonderland
Oh, The Joys
happykatie
Alex Year Two
Glossed Over
Moms In The Right
Thanks to all those who gave us great feedback and shared their thoughts about Lijit. We loved having the chance to listen to what you had to say and appreciate your continued support!
Tags: BlogHer08, conference, lijit, publishers | View Comments
This post and pictures accompanying it are courtesy of Colleen, who holds the title of “executive assistant”, but should be called “the great one who keeps our office together”.
A couple of weeks ago, our CEO, Todd, and his wife Lura hosted a summer BBQ for the Lijit crew. It was a great time for everyone to socialize with each other outside of the office. The evening was filled with good company, good food, hilarious conversations and a bit of weak badminton playing. (I know, we can blame the dogs for stealing the birdies, but the only one who really brought their A game was Dan…who is some sort of alternative sports guru and brings his own racket with him to picnics.)
When the Lijit crew is outside of the office and not talking shop, their personalities and creative sides shine through in many ways. Below are photo highlights from the evening:
There weren’t enough badminton rackets to go around, so Manny decided to improvise and use Todd’s security sign. I believe it had further reach than your average racket.
Who knew Todd was a grilling machine?
Leslie sporting her salsa competition trophy
Jeff’s son, who lost a tooth on a toasted marshmallow
How could I not mention Manny’s Sprite-dwarfing muscles?
Badminton action shots
All in all, everyone had a great time and we’re looking forward to next year. Look out Dan…I hear people will be practicing up for a badminton rematch.
Tags: fun times, lijit, summer BBQ | View Comments
Transparency is More Than A Word
Jun 18th
by Micah Baldwin in Company, employees, features, industry
One of my favorite bloggers (who still *ahem* hasnt installed Lijit on his blog) is Loic Le Meur the founder of Seesmic. As Loic built Seesmic, a short form video startup, he recorded a video blog about the struggles and triumps of building a startup. Every day.
That’s transparency.
At Lijit, we embrace transparency. Like so many other companies, we understand that the increased access that users have to a company’s founders and employees (for example, you can follow the following members of Lijit on Twitter:
- Todd, CEO
- Tara, Community Catalyst
- Micah, VP, Business Development
- Leslie, Senior Director of Product and Operations
- Daniel, Integration Engineer
- Mike, Designer
- and many others…including Lijit itself (yes the company itself tweets!)
But that is just one form of transparency. That is the transparency that speaks to what we are doing in building the product.
As publisher advocates, its important that we explain to publishers exactly what installing Lijit provides them in terms of functionality, and, more importantly, how we get that info, and what we do with the data.
We, of course, have a privacy policy and terms of use that outline specifically what we do with data.
As a Lijit publisher, you know that we provide a wonderful suite of stats around searches and searcher behavior. To provide those stats, we collect the following pieces of data around the search itself, the publisher, and the behavior associated with the query:
USER BEHAVIOR:
- Wijit views
- Wijit tag cloud clicks (side note: if you dont use the search cloud, you are missing out on 3-5x the total number of searches you could be getting. Im just saying…)
- Wijit searches
- Searches on a users profile page
- Search paging
- Search result clicks
- Site/result clicked
- Re-Search (side note: Yeah, me again. If you arent using this feature, you are almost suggesting to your readers to click the back button once they get to your site from a search engine. You like giving traffic back to the search engines do you? I didnt think so.)
- Re-Search result clicks
- Site visitor behavior across installed publishers
- Search(terms, clicks) behavior across installed publishers
PUBLISHER DATA:
- Account Demographic Info
- “Blacklist terms” – publisher selected “negative” terms
- Wijit data (is it installed? Its style, etc.)
- GEO data (collected through a provider)
- Trust and content relationships (content sources, blogroll, mybloglog, tags, etc.)
All of these data points are shown in our stats package, which a publisher can make public or keep private. For example, Brad Feld opens his stats to the public.
At Lijit, transparency is not a word we just throw around.
For us, our singlar belief in providing a service that helps publishers be better publishers means that there are no secrets. We gain nothing if we dont view our relationship to our publishers as a partnership. So, ask us, you might be surprised at the answer.
(As an example of this openness, I have started to leave my email address: micah [at] lijit [dot] com and my cell phone number (720) 231-7120 on FriendFeed and other places. Have a question? Call me. Drop me a line. I will always be open to helping and telling you how I will dominate the sushi eating contest.)
Tags: data collected, lijit stats, privacy policy, research, transparency, twitter | View Comments
I don’t know if I’m like other software developers. I often ask myself, “Self, why are you writing that chunk of code like that.” It’s times like these that I feel more like a Software Philosopher. My observation is that philosophers are never content until they’ve discovered the ‘Why’ about their object of study. Why do we love? Why do we hurt? Why do we or don’t we believe in God? Why do you put your curly brace on the same line? Why didn’t you use a pattern there? Why did you use this pattern here? Sure, it may work, it may get the job done, but should it be done that way, does it have a reason?
Software Philosophers will wax elegant about patterns, naming conventions, and code formatting to name a few. They know those who have come before them, writing books, explaining methodologies, sharing ideas on the art of software. They will religiously defend their choices, argue for hours, even becoming emotionally involved in the code they write. You will know how they feel about their code, whether good or bad.
Every member of your team need not be a Software Philosopher. It does help if there is more then one, after all, they need someone to argue with, someone who will argue back. Sprinkle them like salt in your team and it will change your code, affect your development process, and introduce design. Be sure to balance them with other developers that can ground them when necessary, keeping things on schedule.
Do you have any Software Philosophers on your team? Have you met them? Are you a closet Software Philosopher? Leave a comment, I would love to hear about your development team.
Photo Credit: Proggie
—
Andy Stanberry writes code and philosophizes for Lijit and attempts to maintain a blog at negativemargins.com
Tags: philosophy, software | View Comments
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
Tags: guest post, Lijit employees | View Comments