Daily dump: Mizzou not getting the hang of this web thing
So if we’re to believe the Princeton Review, Penn State is America’s top party school in 2009. And why wouldn’t we? If anyone knows how to rate a party, it’s an Ivy Leaguer.
But there’s no disputing which university has America’s greatest collection of dim-witted administrators in 2009. That honor, once again, goes to the University of Missouri. And frankly, we should probably just retire the trophy at this point. Yes, ol’ Mizzou – the school that gave us the Kenneth Lay Chair of Economics, the same school that once named its new basketball arena after a Wal-Mart heiress that snubbed MU in favor of Southern Cal (and subsequently returned her USC diploma in the wake of a cheating scandal) – has outdone itself again.
Sheryl Crow, MU Tiger/Cougar
It seems the geniuses that comprise the university’s website staff overlooked a tiny detail in the flourishing online world that is www.mizzou.com. Namely, they forgot to add the domain for www.mizzou.us. So imagine the surprise of school officials Monday when they learned that the domain had been purchased by a private individual – and redirected to the home page of the school’s arch-nemesis, the University of Kansas (www.ku.edu).
“Wow,” Jayson Meyer, MU’s director of alumni affairs guffawed to the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World. “Somebody’s pretty smart.”
By late Tuesday, GoDaddy had taken down the redirection link. But no one can take Mizzou’s hard-earned title away.
Moving on with the cavalcade o’ links …
- Not all Vikings observers are convinced the Brett Favre saga is over and done with. (Vikings Gab)
- Emeka Okafor for Tyson Chandler straight up? What in the dog balls is that about? Perhaps the Bobcats weren’t aware they could ask for more. (The Big Lead)
- In honor of the fact it’s eleventy billion degrees outside, we give you hockey jerseys – from the ridiculous to the sublime.
- Staying on our bizarre hockey-in-June theme, MSN Canada offers the five most overvalued free agents of the offseason. … Which segues nicely into Charley Rosen of Fox and his take on the NBA’s most overrated players.
- Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson loses his battle with cancer. (Mr. Factoid)
- Nothing says “out of touch” like a grizzled ol’ newspaper blowhard trying to describe MMA. (Watch Kalib Run)
- And finally, our thanks to Mr. Factoid for turning us on to this extraordinary video, which also doubles as our last mention ever (or at the very least, this week) of Wacko Jacko:
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11 Responses to “Daily dump: Mizzou not getting the hang of this web thing”
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Pooping all over the web …
Communication is the key to any relationship …
First of all, mizzou.com is the alumni association’s site and has nothing to do with “administrators” as you call them. Second, the university can’t be expected to purchase every single domain that exists (.net, .com, .us, .tv, .whatever). Also, http://www.ku.us isn’t purchased either so I guess kU is a bunch of idiots too?
If you know anything about ANYTHING when it comes to the web, you wouldn’t have written this post.
True indeed. Spending an extra $40 a year to lock up all of the domains related to their institution would be too much to ask. Douche.
To call administrators or the web department stupid over this is pretty ridiculous. When someone found the site, a simple cease and desist letter closed it up because Mizzou is a trademarked name.
With budget cuts from the state and requests to cut back spending in any way possible from the university, the “web department” doesn’t have the money to go registering every possible Mizzou-related domain out there. Just like in this case, when one is brought to the school’s attention, it gets taken care of.
So yes, at best, this was an ignorant post.
So paying the university’s lawyers to write “a simple cease and desist letter” makes more sense to you than spending the extra $10 to lock up their domain names? That’s solid financial thinking.
Pavese is correct. There’s no defending this boneheaded blunder.
No, T-Bone, there’s a trademarks and licensing office that monitors these things. They have a form ready to go when something like this happens.
Also, just how many should you/do you lock up? mizzou, missouri, universityofmissouri, uofm, mu, mizzoutigers, missouritigers, universityofmissouritigers, uofmtigers, mutigers, etc. are all out there and COULD represent the university. And think of all the extensions easily available for each one: .com, .edu, .net, .org, .us, .tv and many more. It’s a lot simpler to have the office that takes care of such things send out a pre-made form than to pay to register as many variants as you can think of.
We get it. You’re proud of your university. That’s terrific, thanks for reading.
Excellent point Ryan. Please forward the name of the law firm that sends out pre-made forms on company letterhead. All this time I thought lawyers were greedy bastards. Who knew?!
*complementary pre-made forms that is.
This is really funny. I am very shocked that you cant buy a trademark named website, that’s ridiculous. Best use of redirect I have ever heard of.
Wow..I’m embarrassed for us.
[...] hardly a distinguished institution, SportsPOOP.com has declared Missouri “America’s greatest collection of dim-witted administrators in [...]