ZimmComm is celebrating 20 years of serving the agricultural business, marketing, and media industries in 2024.
The company was founded in 2004 by former farm broadcasters Chuck and Cindy Zimmerman with the idea of helping agribusinesses and organizations reach media outlets with their message in a new way.
“What is now social media was called ‘new media’ at the time,” said Chuck Zimmerman. “The idea of using the internet for communications was just starting with blogs and podcasts.”
First, ZimmComm created AgWired as an on-line publication for news and information from the world of agribusiness. It was the first blog targeted to agriculture, and still is a blog, which was a new term at the time that meant “web log” – a simple website that allowed users to post new messages in a chronological format. “We became agribloggers,” said Zimmerman, who adopted that name as his Twitter handle (@AgriBlogger) when the platform, now known as X, was launched in 2006.
ZimmComm started the first agriculture-focused podcast in early 2005 and coined the term “farm podcasting” with the ZimmCast, which continues to include interviews from around the agribusiness world.
ZimmComm developed “Talking News Releases” as one of its first services in 2005, creating AgNewsWire.com for posting and sharing content with audio, in addition to direct distribution by email. “As former farm broadcasters, we recognized the importance of having sound bites for stories,” Cindy said. “We wanted to make it easier for both the newsmakers and the news reporters to get quality audio without having to set up interviews.”
The first blog dedicated to the U.S. biofuels industry was developed by ZimmComm in September 2005, just one month after the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) was signed into law. Called DomesticFuel.com at the time, Energy.AgWired continues to work with the industry and includes the Ethanol Report podcast, sponsored by the Renewable Fuels Association since 2008. Both the ethanol and biodiesel industry were early adopters of new media.Read More