Search-Powered Web Apps

We like to share companies and services with you that provide value. Partnerpedia is just such a company. They first came to our attention at Chicks Who Click-San Jose, but we really got the chance to talk when Partnerpedia showed up on the expo floor of Blog World this year. Launched in June 2008, Partnerpedia was designed as a way to help channel partners more easily find, recruit and collaborate with one another. Consider it similar to a business social media site like LinkedIn. Basically, being part of Partnerpedia allows companies to increase their business through building a partner network.

According to Vanessa Ho, Partnerpedia’s online community manager, Partnerpedia is specially geared towards small and medium-sized companies that want to create a partner portal but don’t have the resources or capabilities to develop such a thing on their own. In addition to their free service, Partnerpedia also offers enterprise-level companies a paid solution that includes private label branding, metrics, reporting and customer integration with social media channels.

Ho also mentioned that the company has recently launched the beta of their Partnerpedia for Salesforce CRM application that will allow Salesforce CRM users to distribute leads to a partner and track the opportunity throughout its sales cycle. Additional features include automatic notifications to keep users up-to-date and a partner finder to easily locate solution providers.

It’s easy to sign up for Partnerpedia (you can see that we managed to do it) and once you do, companies can create their partner profile, upload documents and publish articles, collaborate on documents and work on specific projects with other Partnerpedia members. If you’re looking for interesting new ways of growing your business, Partnerpedia might be just the answer to find different and strategic partners with which to market your company.

Defrag 2009 was back in the Mile High City of Denver this year, just a stones throw away from our enclave of Boulder, 45 minutes to the north. The conference is an interesting mix of news school social technology with more progressive ‘enterprise’ companies and solutions who are embracing the need to become more “social”. This could mean embracing the voice of the customer or community or leveraging similar means to allow progressive collaborations to occur between employees and partners of a company. All in all it was great to see the movement of a new ‘voice’ being heard and taken seriously by larger enterprise-focused corporations.

While there, our good friend Louis Gray, hosted a panel of 4 technologists which I was asked to participate in. Each of the panelists were essentially allowed to discuss a topic or trend we’re seeing or playing in within our industry articulated in roughly a 5 minute window. These 5 minute ‘pitch-lettes’ were then discussed collaboratively with the audience.

I went through a subset of the data we gathered and contributed to the Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2009 survey. I plucked out the most outstanding trends we’d witnessed from analyzing our data and distilled 5 of those, each spoken about in a one minute diatribe! The audience participation was great and all the presenters had great lenses into and around our community. The presentation I used is below so have a view!

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]

Every year, since 2004, Technorati has published the State of the Blogosphere report. The State of the Blogosphere report is considered the best up to date source of information about size, motivations, and practices of long tail publishers.

This year, Lijit helped Technorati by supplying some information from within the blogs that make up the Lijit Network. Lijit performed the analysis on the raw data and only supplied the aggregate insights documented in this post.

Analysis was centered on four distinct areas of interest including Search Engine Referrals, Blogroll Promotion, the Impact of Twitter, Advertising and Analytics.

Methodology

Data for this post was collected from two primary sources both directly collected by Lijit.

The first source of data was the ~11K active Lijit publishers that have the Lijit Search Widget installed on their publications. Lijit builds a unique search corpus for each publisher. This search corpus includes the publisher’s publication, his user-generated content, and the network of the publishers who influence the publisher (i.e., his Blogroll). This network of influencers results in a crawl footprint of over 2.5M publications that we actively index in order to maintain the search functionality on the 11K publisher sites. The second source of data used in this post comes from information gathered on those 2.5M sites in the extended network.

Data was reduced to something we refer to as the ‘typical publisher’. For some measurements, some publishers were omitted from the sample when in our opinion the specific publisher or publishers represented a singularity in the data that masked the typical publisher substantially. In addition, for some of the analysis points, we removed publications with less than 100 page views a day. Where lower page view publishers were removed we point it out. As page views drop into lower numbers some of the data begins to skew and it begins to get difficult to distinguish active and inactive publishers.

Search Engine Referrals

A typical site within the Lijit publisher network receives 27% of its page views from clicks on results in horizontal search engine result pages. As expected, the highest single source of referrals to the typical publisher site is Google at 23.5%. Yahoo and Bing were next, accounting for about 3.2% of referrals. Twitter and Facebook were nearly identical and total about 1.6% of traffic.

Lijit categorizes publications into 23 topical/vertical subject areas. The Tech vertical saw the highest percent of page views from search engine referrals at 41%. The remaining topical areas were fairly consistent with regards to percent referrals.

The percent of page views that come from search engine referrals is fairly constant with the audience size of the publication. The exception to this are publications of less than 100 page views a day that receive a slightly larger percent of page views from search engine referrals at around 30%.

It’s unclear why smaller publications get a larger percent of page views from search engine referrals, but may be linked to the ever growing length of horizontal search engine queries. According to a Hitwise January 2009 Search report, over 50% of queries are now 3 terms or more on the major horizontal search engines. This suggests that as the length of the average query string gets longer, more referrals get passed to smaller publications due to the specificity of the queries. This is a positive trend for smaller publishers.

Blogroll Promotion

Based on the 2.5M publications crawled by Lijit, the number of blogs in the average blogroll is 47, a surprisingly high number. Although not always a prominent feature on a publisher’s site, cross promotion of bloggers by other bloggers is clearly a significant factor in publication readership growth.

The typical publication within the Lijit network of 2.5M sites appears in 6.4 other Blogrolls. In other words, the typical blog is pointed to by 6.4 other blogs. The difference between a blog appearing in 6.4 other Blogrolls and pointing to an average of 47 other blogs is largely due to blogs pointing outside of the Lijit crawl footprint. The Blogosphere is a very large place.

The Impact of Twitter

Publications with greater than 100 page views a day received on average 0.83% of their page views from Twitter referrals. This percent tracked very closely to Facebook referrals at 0.80%. Publications below 100 page views a day saw a higher percent of page views from Twitter referrals than Facebook referrals.

Besides horizontal search engines, Twitter is the largest driver of referrals to the typical publication.

Lijit Search aggregates user-generated content that a publisher generates, into search results that display on the publisher’s site. Aggregating this content around a publisher’s site creates a stronger brand association for the reader with that publisher and site.

The most common user-generated content source included within a Lijit Search profile is Twitter. About 50% of Lijit publishers include Twitter in their Lijit Search results. This is a change from prior years. In 2007, 26.6% of publishers included Twitter as a content source in their Lijit Search results. In 2008, 42% of Lijit accounts included Twitter as a content source within their Lijit Search results. In 2009, 50% of publishers included Twitter as a content source within their Lijit Search results.

Twitter was by far the fastest growing content source to be included by Lijit publishers. Clearly, publishers embrace the micro-blog format. Going forward, Lijit intends to track the percent of publishers that use Twitter for blog post promotion as we suspect this number is quite high.

Advertising and Analytics

As Lijit crawls the extended network of publications, we track the widgets and tags we find on those publications. For the first time, Quantcast overtook Google Analytics as the most frequent analytics tag found on publications. This is likely due to Quantcast tags being included in some publishing platform templates.

Comparing 2008 to 2009, there has been a 68% increase in the number of sites with Ad tags installed. This indicates to us that monetizing sites is high on the priority list of most publishers.

Last year, when we ran the analysis, Google Ad tags made up 67% of the Ad tags found. This year that percentage has dropped to 47%, indicating publishers are experimenting with other Ad networks. This is probably not an indication of publishers leaving Google but rather publishers trying other Ad networks and using Google at the end of the Ad rotation.

More Data to Come…

With Lijit’s install footprint of 11K active installed base and a crawl footprint of 2.5M publications, Lijit is becoming the defacto source of information from within publications. Starting in 2010 Lijit will publish a more comprehensive study of what’s happening inside the Blogosphere.

Our fearless leader Todd Vernon, CEO of Lijit, was interviewed by Robert Scoble during a visit he made to our plush world wide headquarters here in Boulder Colorado. Have a view here or check it out on Building43.com!

We are super excited to announce a new update to our Wordpress Plugin. The same plugin that brought sweet search functionality and stats information to your wordpress blog is now even better.  You might not notice much, as the core of this update revolves around backend functionality. So what does that mean to you???

• Our search form override functionality is now compatible with just about any wordpress theme out there.  (if you find one that doesn’t work, let us know, and we’ll try to add it)
• The plugin enables new widget functionality which results in faster widget loading for your readers.

If you are using Wordpress 2.7 or higher, you should see auto upgrade notices for version 1.1 showing up in your admin console within the next 24 hours. You can just auto upgrade from your plugins screen. Or, you can always manually install/upgrade the plugin from the Lijit Wordpress Plugin page. For handy install tips and instructions, you can always reference our Lijit Help pages for guidance.

As always, if you have any suggestions or feedback, don’t hesitate to drop us a line at support@lijit.com.

Here at Lijit, we love finding out about new blog tools that make it easier to discover great content. (Hey, it’s a big part of what we do!) We first met the folks from outbrain at SXSW in 2008, when both of our companies were helping with the b5 Blog Network Camp. Since then, we’ve both grown up a bit. It’s not unusual now to hear both Lijit and outbrain discussed as must-have tools for any blogger.

In the interest of research, I wanted to give outbrain a try on my work blog, I quit for Lijit. It really is a simple one-click install and only took me a couple of minutes to get it up on my blog. I love that I can now get instant feedback and, underneath my posts, I’m recommending other quality content for my visitors to read. For a free service, outbrain rocks. I’m looking forward to checking out the reports that outbrain provides and to find out even more about the people coming to my blog. Who doesn’t love stats?

If you’re interested in an easy blog enhancement, be sure to give outbrain a try. Their widget inherits the look and feel of your blog, making for a seamless integration that can only help your readers. We really like what outbrain is doing and think you will too!

You can read more about outbrain on their blog and follow them on Twitter.

We’re honored to help spread the word about one of our favorite tech sites, Crenk. If it’s tech news you’re looking for, you’ll find it covered on this blog. Whether it’s product reviews, mobile apps, or something software-related, this blog has all the resources to guarantee that you’ll make an informed decision.

Steven, the founder of Crenk, was kind enough to write a post about using Lijit on his site, so it only makes sense that we return the favor. Plus, how can you not love a tech site that has a pink widget? I sent Steven some questions about his blogging experiences and I’m excited that he was game to answer them.

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

I have been blogging for a bit of a year now, since October 2007. I started blogging because I had a keen interest in startups and wanted to voice my opinions.

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

Blogging has allowed me to actually talk about a topic I love and definitely helped me in learning how to express my thoughts correctly.

• Of all the posts you’ve written, what has been your favorite and why?

This is my favorite post because it actually has meaningful discussion in the comments.

• What are the top 3 tech tools that you love using and why?

Spotify (great for creating playlists and listening to in the office), Tweetdeck (it simplifies Twitter) and Filezilla (the best FTP program I have ever used).

• How has Lijit helped you as a blog publisher?

Lijit has simplified the search process for my blog. It allows me to easily add a great search tool and not have to worry about quality of search tool, plus allows me to focus on content.

In addition to the wonderful content he provides on his blog, Steven (using the Crenk name) is a poweruser on Twitter. You can follow him here and learn more about his blog here. Many thanks to Steven for helping us out with this interview and for using Lijit on his blog. We appreciate both!

This is another in our series of guest posts written by Lijit employees. In addition to the business development she does for Lijit, Grace likes making lists, laughing, snowboarding, and the lost art of writing letters.

November 15th will mark the two months that I have been Lijit. Now, part of being Lijit isn’t just about having the right ‘tude or rocking MC Hammer balloon pants (okay, bad joke but you get it all the time when you work for a company called Lijit). It’s much more. Let me give you the newbie’s look into what being Lijit is really all about:

–Intelligence: Our team is quick, witty, and good at what they do. We get it. We get our product, our users, and each other. I bet our combined IQ sky rockets our past our office window and over Mount Sanitas.

–Progressive: Speaking of our product, Lijit’s trust-based search is pushing boundaries and not only giving an empowering tool for online publishers, but for their readers. I am Lijit today because I was so impressed with the search and installed it first on my own blog before even realizing they were located in Boulder, the town I had just moved to. Doing business development, I work with hundreds of people in a week from all walks of life and through many mediums. Nine out of ten times, when I explain what we do at Lijit and that our service is free, I can literally hear their jaw drop (yes, over the phone, even on Twitter). Excellence=Free=Lijit=Unparalleled. How Lijit is that, to be able to work for something you believe in while it also is helping people?

–Laughter & Fun: I’m not just saying this to sound cliche, let me explain. There isn’t a day that goes by in our brightly lit, lime green hued office, where laughter isn’t heard. Whether it’s collective over Buck’s Russian accent, an inside joke within the Estrogen Lounge between the Product Evangelist/Biz Development ladies (me, Tara, and Jacqueline), a company outing at the racetrack watching our CEO spin out in his car and come in last, or it’s Friday late afternoon and a few people decide they need to unwind with Rock Band and Billy Joel begins to blare throughout the office. We stay serious and focused but never forget the importance of keeping the mood light, fun, and humorous. [On a side note, I truly think it's a hiring prerequisite that each person has an excellent sense of humor at Lijit.]

–Equality: My previous employment ranged from a non-profit to hierarchical public relations agencies and sometimes a pompous air seemed to creep in from the higher level down to the lowest. That’s not what being Lijit is about. Here everyone makes themselves available for questions, concerns, and each individual’s well-being. We make time for each other and it’s as though we really exercise the notion that each piece is relevant to the greater whole.

So you see, being Lijit requires a balance of laughter, highly-attuned intelligent minds, a progressive and unparalleled product, and a permeating mentality of equality. Sounds like a pretty good medley, eh? I think so.

Last week, the Defrag conference came to Denver. In its second year, Defrag is unlike the standard conferences Tara and I have attended on behalf of Lijit over the past year or so.

Defrag’s tag line “Accelerating the aha moment,” is rather appropriate. I liken it to a dinner where the participants are all highly educated and someone like Professor William Duggan, Columbia Business School and author of Strategic Intuition speaks on where the origins of innovation are in the brain.

Or, there is a rousing discussion around the aggregation and dissemination of content around the web with T.A. McCann, Gist; Tom Keller, IntenseDebate; Daniel Ha, Disqus; Avinoam Rubenstain, my6sense.

Imagine listening to Charlene Li discuss how to harness the implicit value of the social graph?

But, more importantly, because of the small size, interaction increases. I sat down with Howard Lindzon and was able to talk about Lijit and StockTwits at length, which just is so difficult to do at larger conferences.

It was great to have a conference of the quality of Defrag locally, and I am excited to see what Eric brings to Denver next year!