The short of it is that it's a cryptocurrency just like bitcoin, with a slightly different mining system to allow for faster verification. ASIC miners also apparently can't mine them either, so litecoin adopters are hoping to see more people mining them once ASICs dominate the bitcoin mining market. You can check out more over at the alternative currencies page, or check out reddit.com/r/litecoin for more. I was wondering if anyone else was mining them/interested in them.
Wow, a very useful newbie post. Thanks!