AgWired

There has certainly been plenty of jokes about USDA’s new food guide pyramid but none as elaborate as the spoof site. Let’s you know how important it is to reserve extra website domain extensions!

This information comes from the Institute of Food Technologists website:

Spoof of USDA MyPyramid site gets noticed

4/30/2005-When the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture left two URL extensions of their Web site, describing the new Food Pyramid (mypyramid.gov) open, two Web developers Stephen Eisenmenger and Molly Nutting set up a spoof of the site at www.mypyramid.org and www.mypyramid.us. According to news reports, the USDA’s site has gotten more than 268 million hits, and the parody has gotten more than 1 million. Eisenmenger and Nutting, self-described social activists and vegetarians, charge that the USDA pyramid represents a conflict between an agency that is responsible for promoting the interests of the U.S. agriculture industry and an attempt to promote healthy eating. The spoof calls for “…moderate or vigorous activity (such as playing video games, standing up to change the channel or walking to your car).” According to news reports, the USDA won’t comment other than to acknowledge the existence of site. The sites look very similar because Eisenmenger and Nutting copied the USDA site and added their own text and messages. The USDA’s graphics and other materials are part of the public domain.

Animal ID is a big issue in agriculture right now. A lot of work is being done on ways to implement ID and it’s a very sensitive issue for livestock producers. Tomorrow you can have a chance to hear what USDA has to say about it. Although I’m sure there are no decisions it should provide some insight into where things stand on the regulatory front and what the government thinks about this issue.

JOHANNS AND USDA OFFICIALS TO HOLD TELECONFERENCE REGARDING ANIMAL ID ISSUES

Reporters can listen to live audio of the briefing via webcast at http://www.usda.gov.

Reading web statistics is almost an art form since there’s usually so much data available it’s hard to sift through to find what’s meaningful.

AgriMarketing Pros went public at this address on March 15, so I’m only going to let you know about the statistics since then.

Since March 15 we’ve had 1,235 unique visitors. They’ve visited an average of almost 4 times each. Although mostly from the United States, we’ve had visitors from 6 other countries. Everyone always wants to know how many “hits” you’ve had, which I think can be a very misleading number. Ours so far is over 36,000.

Not too bad for a start-up weblog serving a niche industry! Especially when you consider how little promotion we’ve done to date. A couple of emails and a booth at the NAMA convention. That’s it.

Thanks for all your support. Please keep reading. As a twist on an expression a good friend of mine always said, “We can use all the readers we can get.”