lijit - Search Based On Your Content

August 22, 2008

lijit is a new search application designed for publishers, which, with the advent of applications like Twitter, blogs, Facebook, etc… we all are to some degree.

lijit enables you to add a search widget (er.. wijit) to your site or blog and return results based on your network of content. For example, if someone searched this site through the lijit search (very top right) for “Community Crush” (shameless plug I know, you might experiment with “Wordcamp” too and get a lot back) you would get results from all of my content sources (Facebook, twitter, this blog, Linkedin, stories I’ve dug, …). In another tab, you can see search results from my “network” or sites that I follow and/or trust. Of course you can get plain ol’ web results too or you can get results that are specific only to this site.

The idea is that it aggregates all of my content and trusted sources so you can find it in one place while still differentiating between my content (in the case of me) or content from my network.

It’s a clever idea and one which should do well. I’m going to continue testing it for a while but if all goes well I’ll remove the default search for this site and use only the lijit wijit.

I learned about lijit at WordCamp 2008 while talking to Aaron Brazel who is now working with lijit.

lijit has also secured $7.1M in Series C funding so they should be araound and doing well for sometime. I’m looking forward to seeing how this grows and evolves.

If you’re a WordPress user they also have a lijit search plugin with integrated statistics to replace the default WordPress search. I’ll be pluggin that in shortly. Note: ***This plug-in is only available for those WordPress users with versions 2.3-2.6.***

Do some lijit searches and let me know how it works for you.

Updates From WordCamp 2008

August 17, 2008

I’m in San Francisco with one of my business partners Martin for WordCamp 2008 (see my BlackBox WordCamp post for an overview). For anyone who is a WordPress user or developer here are some highlights and links from the event. All of the links open in a new window.

SEO Tip: Use Multiple RSS Feeds (for each category)

Plugins:

SEO Title Tag
WP-Sticky or Adhesive
Progressive License

Operator : Firefox Add On

Link Love from WC 2008:

netconcepts.com : seo

redmonk.com - open source analyst firm

http://redmonk.com/sogrady/ - stephen o’grady

revolutiontheme.com : Premium WordPress themes from Brian Gardner

engrishfunny.com

LOLCats

http://markjaquith.com/ : code animal

http://getsatisfaction.com/ : syndicate your profile

technosailor.com : Aaron Brazell

ma.tt : Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress

SEO Rapper : Charles Lewis

Do the Page Rank: From the SEO Rapper

http://www.vcwear.com/

Quotes:

“Find the intersection of commercial and open-source interests.” - Stephen O’Grady

“I just bought one of your themes. But what is WordPress? ” - Brian Gardner on a support e-mail he received.

“WordPress.org now drives 2,604,288 blogs and is increasing by thousands a day.” - Matt Mullenweg

FYI:

Version 2.5.1 and higher is secure. If you are on a lower version, UPGRADE!

Other good coverage from WordCamp 2008:

TechCrunch

ZDNet

CNET

Aaron Brazell

Sneak Peek at “Crazy Horse” The next generation of WordPress