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There are four kinds of people that work here at Lijit*: those that race cars, those that run, those that bike, and those that do other things**. I’m of the opinion that bikers make up the second largest majority around the office, being slightly beaten out by the overall geek population. When I got word that there were a couple of self-proclaimed geeks that were riding their bicycles across the US to raise awareness about bike-commuting, I knew they had to be Lijit.

Meet Carlos and Joe, the two geeks behind Real Geeks Ride. They started their cross-country cycling adventure on May 20th and are chronicling their journey via blog, tweets and pictures. We’re honored that they’ve chosen to use Lijit on the official RGR blog but reading about their travels just wasn’t enough. After a few emails (and one phone call he took from the side of the road in Nebraska with big trucks whizzing by), Carlos was happy to answer a few questions for us.

How long have you been blogging and what made you start?

I have been in the blogging world on and off for the past few years. It tends to be event/travel oriented, rather than opinion or news based. I started blogging in high school but dropped it when interest was lost. I picked it up again when I traveled around the world with a ‘worldly singing and dancing group’ to keep my parents and friends up to date.

What has been the greatest thing you’ve received from blogging?

During this bike ride, blogging has given both Joe and I hundreds of people looking out for our safety and health. They ask about us and offer suggestions when we write about our health issues. Knowing that we have moms across the country expecting our safety is uplifting.

What has suprised you on your cross-country bike trip and why?

It is most surprising how different each state reacts to cyclists on the road. We are currently in Nebraska and receive a wave from every other car (not exaggerating). Our experience here is that people give ample room when passing, and are willing to help at any moment. This differs greatly from our experience in Iowa, where we were screamed at, almost hit a few times, and given the finger more times than waves.

What has been the biggest challenge you guys have encountered on your trip so far?

The biggest challenge has been keeping up with the blog. After biking 100+ miles and arriving at our destination at 8 pm, the last thing we want to do is edit photos and write about the past few hours. However, we gain so much push to do ‘work’ when people send us messages of inspiration. It has been the hundreds of messages we have received that allow us to overcome not wanting to post.

How has Lijit helped you to become a better blogger?

Lijit has allowed me to become a better blogger by making it easy to search for people doing similar things. The more I read within a certain field, the more it gives me the ability to see the different writing styles of that field.

If you’re interested, you can follow along with Carlos and Joe on their blog, on Twitter or through their Flickr pics.

Additionally, if you’re in the Denver/Boulder area, you’re invited to meet the guys this Friday, July 3rd, as they make a stop in Boulder. We’ll be meeting up at the Boulder Draft House, from 4-6 pm, to enjoy some happy hour beers with the guys. (Look for us in the back room!) Ride your bike, stop in, and let us show Carlos and Joe just how much we love our bikes around here.

*A very sweeping overgeneralization, of course.

**Other things include: rugby, hiking, parenting, photography, playing video games & tweeting.

Although we wish we could sponsor and support each event and charity that comes our way, unfortunately, as a startup, we can’t every time. However, we believe in giving back and sometimes it’s the little things that count the most. This is why we’re happy to be sponsoring 12for12k’s charity tweet-up in cities across the US, Canada and Australia, taking place on April 18th, in conjunction with Mom It Forward. Check here to see if one of the tweetups is in a city near you to join in!

What is 12for12k, you ask? Headed up by a loyal Lijit user and friend, Danny Brown, the 12for12k Challenge is “the combination of social media and fundraising.” The organization’s aim is to raise a minimum of $144,000 for 12 charities over the course of 2009, with a new charity being supported each month and the proceeds go directly to charity.

The concept:

• 12 months of the year
• 12 charities, a different charity each month
• $12,000 per charity

For more information about 12for12k, you can check out their website.

To donate for the April Charity, pay it forward, here:

**Many thanks to Grace for taking the lead on this and writing a fantastic blog post!

(With all the conferences we are attending or speaking at this year, I am betting the joke of using Lijit in the blog post title might be wearing thin. Or not.)

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Web2.0Expo in SF as a blog partner. While attending the conference was cool enough, I also got to attend a special blogger roundtable with Tim O’Reilly. We got to discuss government and the internet’s role, including the importance of openness. We discussed all things social media and the power of bloggers. We even discussed the business of publishing real books!

It was really thought provoking session, and certainly the highlight for me.

Luckily, I wasn’t the only person in attendance from Lijit. Both Todd Vernon and Walter Knapp joined me, enabling us to not only connect with many of our Lijit partners in the SF Bay Area, but attend several really informative sessions, such as Beyond Buzz: On Measuring a Conversion and the keynote by fellow Boulderites Jake Nickell and Jeffrey Kalmikoff of Threadless.

Coming on the tail of SXSW, Web 2.0 Expo was a very different conference. There seemed to be more established tech companies like IBM, Novell and Nokia in attendance and exhibiting. The conference overall seemed to be more subdued and relaxed.

Frankly, that made the sessions easier to attend and more enjoyable. There were less parties, although I have to say that Brady did a great job with Ignite SF.

Of the conferences that we have attended this year, Web 2.0 Expo was definitely a highlight. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if I spoke! (Guess I will have to change that next year or at the NYC event…:) Maybe we can get several Lijit folks on the bill?)

Today, we gathered as a company for one of our regular brown bag lunchtime meetings. The point of these brown bags is for different people to share their area of speciality at Lijit, helping to keep us all informed of what everyone else is working on. We also wanted an occasion to celebrate our newest publisher, a little site that you might have heard of, and there was really only one way to do that properly.

Cheeseburgers all around! Luckily, our CEO was feeling especially sentimental and did a great job of recording the event for posterity. Thanks for the pictures Todd!*

*Although if some of us had known you were taking pictures, we might have tried a little harder to look awake…no offense, Shawn.

The best part of Todd documenting our cheeseburger feast? Getting to watch Walter, our COO, really enjoy his burger. We’re talking edge-of-your-seat excitement here people.

See? We do know how to have fun without alcohol.

Maybe it’s because our logo is green or maybe it’s because we can appreciate a holiday designed to be celebrated with beer, but whatever the case, we’re happy to be spending this holiday with some of the best bloggers out there. Our publishers cover the spectrum when it comes to content and it’s always amazing to see what different people have to say about a day like today.

Some of our publishers like to see just how crafty they can get with green while other blogs celebrate the craft projects that may not be blessed with the luck of the Irish.

Of course, there are the blog publishers who share their favorite Irish jokes, their favorite pictures from Ireland or the real story behind St. Patrick’s Day.

And where would be on any holiday without appropriate food and drink? Whether it’s posting a traditional corned beef and cabbage recipe or something a little less traditional, like Irish Car Bomb cupcakes, your palate is sure to be pleased.

To wash down those delicacies, there is the ubiquitous green beer that comes out of the faucets in Ireland. While I may have just made that fact up, one of our publishers is making sure all of his readers know everything they should about beer and another one of our favorite blogs offers up a complete list of St. Patrick’s Day cocktails.

If you’re in the mood for dancing a jig or two, we have a publisher who created a special playlist just for today and another publisher who recommends the best places to enjoy traditional Irish music…in the Adirondacks.

Let’s not forget the important role that color plays in today’s celebration. If you’re into all things green, then our many publishers have you covered there as well.

We had one blogger share a fabulous Irish quote and taking a cue from her, we’d like to share a toast with all those Lijit publishers out there:

May the lilt of Irish laughter
lighten every load.
May the mist of Irish magic
shorten every road…
And may all your friends remember
all the favors you are owed!

If you’re Lijit and writing about leprechauns, shamrocks or other byproducts of Ireland today, leave us a comment and be sure to include a link to your post. Sláinte!

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to speak at WordCamp Denver. What is WordCamp you ask?

Basically, WordCamp is a day (or two) long event where bloggers and developers (specifically Wordpress developers) get together to talk about all things Wordpress.

This was the first time that Denver has hosted a Wordcamp, and Crowd Favorite (the makers of our Wordpress widget) put it all together.

What a great show it was.

It was broken into two segments, the first, in the morning started as WordCamps usually do, with Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Wordpress, giving his “State of the Word” talk. He brought up all the interesting things that the Automattic (the team behind Wordpress) was working on, what the next release of Wordpress would have, and he talked about a couple new resources that were launching, Wordpress.tv and the Wordpress Handbook.

The morning included a panel on web design, with Kevin Menzie (Slice of Lime), Jeremy Harrington (crawlspace|media) and Brian Warren (Be Good, Not Bad). Jane Wells of Automattic talked about Open Source, and right before lunch, one of my favorites, Ben Huh of ICanHasCheezburger who spoke on how his company, Pet Holdings, focuses on the core aspects of their business by outsourcing all technical needs. And he did it without once showing a LOLCat.

In the afternoon, there were two tracks. A technical track and a blogger track. True to Alex King, the technical track was highly technical, with Jake Spurlock and Joe Scott coming in from Utah (Jake spoke on BuddyPress, which one day will be released! Joe spoke on XML-RPC, which might be one of the coolest things ever).

Over at the blogger track, there were a varied subject matter. Boulder’s Jim Turner was on a panel talking about making money blogging; Gil Awsakwa spoke on Media and Publishing, which was especially timely given the recent close of the Rocky Mountain News.

Jon Fox (another Boulderite) spoke about his company Intense Debate and how they are attacking the comment space.

Dave Moyer, an incredibly intelligent and successful kid (and by kid, I think he is 15 years old) spoke on Podcasting. Working at Bitwire, he has become quite the expert on the subject.

At the end of the day, I spoke about Measuring Online Influence, and tried to focus on the reasons why we blog. I have embedded my deck below:

All in all, WordCamp Denver was a great experience. After speaking out at Wordcamp Las Vegas, it was great to get to be involved in a WordCamp closer to home.

If you are interested in attending a WordCamp, check out the upcoming ones. I am speaking at Wordcamps in Chicago and DC, and may be at the ones in San Francisco and New Orleans.

Next weekend, I’m heading to Nashville for the Blissdom Conference and am most excited to be going. In addition to speaking on a panel about blogger outreach, I’ll also have the chance to meet lots of bloggers getting their bliss on. The conference has sold out and the list of activities is impressive. I took a quick look at the attendees and can’t wait to meet the following Lijit users in person…

Her Bad Mother
Complete Organizing Solutions
The Bean
Velveteen Mind
The Inspired Room
Successful Blog
Blissfully Domestic
DesignHER Momma
Alex Year Two

…not to mention having the opportunity to evangelize Lijit to many other bloggers. If you’re going to be at the conference, be sure to send me a note and let me know your t-shirt size. You know I’ll be packing some serious swag with me.

While Tara was at Chicks Who Click ‘09, I was out in Las Vegas speaking at WordCamp Las Vegas (which occurred during CES, which Todd Vernon, our CEO attended).

Whew!

WordCamp Las Vegas was a wonderful event, where Wordpress users and developers get together to discuss all things Wordpress.

This WordCamp was a bit different in that there was also a good discussion around the business of blogging and social media.

The speaker list was quite the who’s who of social media. Chris Brogan (Lijit User), Liz Strauss (Lijit User), Warren Whitlock (Future Lijit User), Jim Turner (Lijit User), Jim Krukal (Lijit User) and Dave Taylor (Lijit User) all gave highly interesting and informative talks.

My presentation, You Are The Center of Your Universe can be found here.

Luckily, our host, John Hawkins captured it all on Ustream here.

It was great to hang out with Matt Mullenweg (who celebrated his 25th birthday) and the couple of hundred folks the came to the conference.

I am planning on speaking/attending about 4 other WordCamps this year, including Chicago, DC, San Francisco and Denver (I might head down to Dallas as well). Let me know if you are planning on attending a WordCamp and I will bring you a Lijit T-shirt!

This past Saturday, Lijit was proud to help sponsor the first-ever Chicks Who Click, a social media conference geared for women. More than fifty women (and a handful of men) gathered to talk about many different aspects of social media, including how to effectively use different tools to market your small business, how to create a consistent brand online, and how to balance your online activities with your offline life.

I was honored to speak on a panel titled “Your Social Media Toolbox”, with the amazing Wayne Sutton and the talented Lucretia Pruitt, both of whom know way more than I do and both of whom I’m sure will be installing Lijit any day now (wink, wink). Once I got going, I realized that I’ve really learned a lot in my two years at Lijit and with that in mind, there is still so much more to learn. Just over the course of our panel, I learned about some interesting new tools that look promising. I’ll be sure to share more details once I’ve tested them out myself.

It was lovely meeting so many different women, doing so many different things, that were able to come together to discuss something we all had in common. Whether it was a small business or a huge corporation, everyone seems to realize the importance of social media. The main challenges come from proving the value of it to those who don’t understand…ah yes, ROI.

Some of the businesses represented at the conference include:

The Wisdom Coach
Fresh Organic Office Delivery
BirdDog Press
Baby Candy
Little Alouette
Sama Baby
One2One Network
BumperTunes
Park City Mountain Resort
ZoomAlbum
Working Knowledge
Klein Buendel
Crocs
Embarq
Colorado Springs Health Partners
Beneficence
Synapse3Di
Local Matters

If I forgot someone, please let me know and I’ll be sure to add you to the list. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to talk to everyone!) Many thanks to the other sponsors, Kirtsy, Metzger, and Walmart and to the many women who shared their expertise. Chicks Who Click was a wonderful event and I’m looking forward to doing it again next year!

[Photo credit: Emily Lewin]

A few nights ago, the Lijit crew gathered to celebrate the season. We met in the back room of a local tavern, located just a few blocks from our office. There was food, merriment and poker chips dressed up as drink tickets but it’s safe to say that the highlight of the night was the Lijit band taking the stage. After practicing for weeks, their debut performance was impressive and they easily wowed the crowd with their talent. Thanks to Micah for all the pictures and to everyone at Lijit for the fun!