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Last night, our CEO, Todd Vernon, and COO, Walter Knapp, were interviewed by Bloggers School on Blog Talk Radio. They discussed the history of Lijit, the business model behind our company and how our search adds value to both the publisher and the blog reader. The majority of the interview centered around questions about Lijit’s premium Ad Network and how we’re making it even easier for bloggers to make money on their blogs. Give it a listen if you want to hear more from the top dogs themselves.

This was our third year having a booth at Blog World and it just keeps getting better for us. Instead of going on and on about what a great conference it was and how many times our company got mentioned in sessions or during keynotes, we thought pictures might do a better job of telling our story…

Our booth, along with the swag we were handing out, attracted quite the crowd. The  Purell was a big hit…either due to the fact that folks were shaking a lot of hands or that they agreed that Las Vegas was a dirty city.

But, one of the main reasons we go to Blog World is to be immersed in a world we love…that of blog publishers. Seeing their eyes light up when we explain and demo what we do is something that just can’t be described.

Not to mention all the opportunities we have for spreading our message to a larger audience…

However, probably our most favorite thing to do while at a show like Blog World is to thank our current users. Folks like the masterminds behind I Can Has Cheezburger, Neatorama, and WebUrbanist. And slapping a few stickers on cute mommybloggers doesn’t hurt the cause either. (Hi Extraordinary Mommy!)

A conference like Blog World takes a lot of energy. Not only is it a big show, but the fact that it takes place in Vegas makes it all the more tiring. To make sure we were up to the task, we made sure we had all of the essentials covered…

Thanks to everyone we met and to all those who told us how much they loved what we’re doing. Wear your Lijit shirts with pride and we hope to see you next year at Blog World 2010!

[Photo credits: Perry, Grace, Greg and http2007]

It’s that time of year again for the geeks and bloggers to arrive in masses and congregate in Sin City for Blog World.

Lijit is gearing up for our third year at the BlogWorld New Media Expo held October 15-17th at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

We will be setting up shop at our Lijit booth (#330 to be exact) equipped of course with our soft, Lijit t-shirts. Our crew will be ready to meet and talk all things wijit. If you’re a Lijit user, want to use Lijit or want some Purell to help clean up your search, then be sure to stop by our booth and say hello!

Don’t forget to catch some Lijit speakers, too! Greg Keller, Lijit’s VP of Product Development will be speaking at WordCamp Las Vegas in coordination with Blog World. At 3:00 PM on Friday, October 16th Greg will be speaking on: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Our Readers - A Study of Reader Profile Data. Micah Baldwin (former VP of Business Development for Lijit) will be speaking on a panel with our CEO, Todd Vernon at 11:30 AM on Saturday, October 17th on Measuring and Building Online Influence.

We look forward to meeting you and please feel free to e-mail Tara (tara at lijit dot com) or Grace (gboyle at lijit dot com) if you would like to set up a specific time to meet. For the latest Lijit news fresh from Blog World, follow us on Twitter (@Lijit) as we hold it down on the expo floor.

Lijit’ees present: Todd Vernon, Walter Knapp, Tara Anderson, Perry Quinn, Grace Boyle and Gregory Keller.

When I first got to know Stan James (Lijit’s Founder), we had a great conversation about a conference called Gnomdex in Seattle. I thought I had heard of such a conference in my startup days out in San Francisco, and sure enough I had.

In the late 1990s, I worked at a startup in Emeryville, CA. While there, several of the developers received an email from a guy named Chris Pirillo, and wished they could attend a conference in the corn fields of Iowa. It was called Gnomedex.

Lijit was a sponsor of the conference in 2007, and last year I attended. It was an amazing conference. Probably one of my favorite of the year because of Chris’ curation of speakers (including the guy that drove the Mars Rover!) and the community interaction of the attendees.

As I laid out my wishlist for conferences to speak at in 2009, Gnomedex was high on the list. Over the course of the year, Chris and I became better friends, and I was honored to be asked to speak at Gnomedex 2009. Talking about the impact blogging and community have had on my life (The presentation was entitled “How to be Awesome…er”) I really enjoyed speaking in front of the Gnomedex attendees, both in there and virtually.

Here are my presentation slides:

As always, it was great to connect with current and future Lijit publishers. Gnomedex has been a great measure of Lijit’s growth. In 2007 and 2008, we were the new kids, and most of the conversations I had about Lijit were filled with explanations of what we do, and why its interesting. Now, with our strong feature set and new monetization options, the conversations are much more focused on how to work together.

If you have a short list of conferences, please put Gnomedex on the list. Its an amazing conference, on par with SXSW (except without the size and craziness), and is the only conference that I lament missing sessions.

Cant wait for Gnomedex 2010!

This past weekend, Lijit was proud to be one of the sponsors for the ongoing Chicks Who Click conference series. San Jose, or to be more specific-downtown Palo Alto, was the setting for this installment of the (mostly) female gathering of those involved in social media and working in the tech industry.

There was a panel featuring Aubrey Sabala of Digg, Margaret Stewart of YouTube and Meagan Marks from Facebook. These three incredibly smart women talked about how they’ve trailblazed their way to fantastic careers by carving out roles for themselves that cater to their strengths. One of the key take-aways from this panel was the notion of “intelligent risk-taking” and that if an opportunity scares you, then it’s probably exactly what you need to be doing.

I spoke on a panel about being a woman involved with a tech startup. (There I am, in the middle, talking with my hands yet again.) Emily Olson of the delicious Foodzie and Suzanne Xie of the stylish Weardrobe joined me as we discussed the different challenges we’ve faced as being part of early-stage tech companies. Suzanne brought up the point that her background is in finance and coming from that kind of workplace, tech seems very open to women. Both Emily and I agreed that being female has helped with marketing our companies in both online and offline communities. A point that resonated with the audience is that if you’re going to have women users, it can be beneficial to have a female voice or face to assist with tech support or new customer outreach.

In case you haven’t experienced it, there really is a kind of magic that happens when you get a roomful of women (and a few men) together, talking about collaboration, connection and how tech can play an important part in building a business. Women of all ages shared stories of how they found jobs on Twitter, used Facebook to get the word out about their startup or formed relationships with major brands all because of their blog. It was an inspiring day, full of shared knowledge and newly-formed friendships. I’m grateful that Lijit was able to help make it happen.

This Saturday, I am excited to speak at the Blogs With Balls conference in NYC. There is quite a line up, and I am glad to be included.

Yes, my 12 year old mind immediately went to the gutter when I was first approached about speaking. But, the conference is all about sports blogging.

Put together by Don Povia and Chris Lucas as a sports blogging conference, they have assembled a strong array of speakers, highlighted by my good friends, Gary Vaynerchuk and Julia Roy.

The sponsors are also fantastic. (Yes, we are helping sponsor the event!). YardBarker, SBNation, VaynerMedia and BlogWorldExpo are all companies that I have worked with and am excited to have them be part of this inaugural conference.

My panel will be focusing on how to monetize your blog. With Lijit’s recent release of our Ad Network, we have learned a lot about how to help bloggers really maximize the revenue their blogs are generating, and it will be nice to share it with the attendees.

While there is a focus on sports blogging, the truth is that many of the panels are providing information that is appropriate to any blogger.

So, if you are in New York City on June 13, you should swing by and say hi.

Of course if you are a Lijit blogger, please let me know, I would love to meet and thank each one of you!

I spent the last week at SXSW. Commonly referred to as Geek Spring Break (I couldnt find the wet laptop contests though…), SXSW is a great event for Lijit every year.

This year I spoke on a panel entitled Beyond Aggregation: Finding the Web’s Best Content. I was lucky enough to join a panel with old and new friends: Marshall Kirkpatrick (ReadWriteWeb), Louis Gray (LouisGray.com), Melanie Backer (AideRSS/PostRank) and Gabe Rivera (TechMeme) and speak in front of a standing room only crowd (it must have been the ICanHasCheezBurger Happy Cat Plushy I was giving away).

The panel went exceedingly well, with some great questions from the audience.

At SXSW, I did more that just speak on that panel. I also was interviewed by several different bloggers and websites. Here is my interview with Grant Robertson of DownloadSquad. You might notice that I am whispering (we were in the press room) and smiling (there was a really funny massage therapist next to me).

The full post is here:

SXSW 2009 : Finding relevancy in the blog haystack with Lijit from Download Squad on Vimeo.

I got to meet with brands and other bloggers and continue to learn about ways that we can continue to provide real value to our publishers…

(MICAH! You said it was Geek Spring Break! I want the juicy stuff!)

…fine.

SXSW is also about the parties, of which there were about a million. I enjoyed the iMeem party (probably because of the Salt Like BBQ that was served, saving me a 20 minute drive) and we helped sponsor the Colorado Interactive Party at the Pure Volume House, which is always a highlight every year (about 5,000 people came through it).

SXSW is the largest conference in our space. It allows all us geeks to get together, eat a little BBQ and talk about all kinds of things. My favorite picture of SXSW (that I took) is this one:

Which was taken at J. Kelly’s (An amazing BBQ place near my hotel), and includes Richard Moross (CEO of Moo/UK), Harper Reed and Dylan Richard (CTO Threadless/Chicago), Scott Belsky (CEO Behance/NYC), Jared Goralnick (CEO of AwayFind/DC). At this meal, Blaine Cook (who built Twitter’s framework/Ireland), Sarah Townsend (Social Vibe/LA), Mark Dillon (Founder & CTO, Phonetag), and, of course me.

Where else would we ever have met and talked over a meal?

Thats the real magic of SXSW. 10,000 geeks in one area do more than bring down AT&T network or party into the night. We talk about great ideas and interesting partnerships. New ideas are birthed at SXSW (see FourSquare and Contxts) and great ideas are given a further push to become even better (cant wait for the new stuff Lijit is bringing out in April).

So thats the juicy stuff. We geeks came to Austin, ate some BBQ and found some more interesting ways to work together. Some of us left with our laptops adorned with new laptop stickers, but we all left with new friends and business relationships.

See you in 2010!

Thats right. I am headed to SXSW.

I will be there from March 12 - March 18, and would love to meet up with everyone!

Want my contact info? Text micah to 50500. Not bringing cards. Follow me on twitter: @micah.

Want to see me speak? I mean on a specific topic? I am on a panel discussion entitled: Beyond Aggregation — Finding The Webs Best Content. I am joined by moderator Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb, Gabe Rivera of TechMeme, Louis Gray of the famous LouisGray.com and Melanie Baker of AideRSS.

It should be super interesting as we discuss how is good content found these days. After all, with 70 million blogs out there, how do you find the good stuff?

Im attending several parties, having several meetings (want to have one? Send me a tweet), and generally “doing SXSW right.”

SXSW, for me, is going to be an interesting time. A year ago, I was just getting into blogging and social media and working at Lijit, and learning about who was who and what was what. This year, I know a bit more, and know a *lot* more people.

I expect SXSW to be highly successful for Lijit and extremely fun for me.

Here are some articles I wrote after last year’s SXSW. I wonder what I will write after this one?

Wanna Know How to do SXSW? - I wrote about how a veteran transversed the halls of SXSW.

There Were Three Types of People at SXSW - My observations of SXSW 2008.

Here is a link to a lijit search of everything in my trusted network about SXSW. What a great way to discover new content, huh?

[I also posted this to my blog LearnToDuck.com. Mostly, because I am lazy. Have you seen Walter's rules? But what LTD readers wont see is that I will be bringing Lijit tshirts. Find me. I bet I have one for you.]

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.