Woot : One Day, One Deal (SM)

5th Generation 30GB Apple iPod sighed. Each year he said it would be the last time he came to this place. And yet, time and again he made the long trek just to see. He came in 2012, the year the Mayans attacked Texas and captured every piece of land but the Alamo. He came in 2014, despite the riots that followed the United States winning their first World Cup. He even came in 2023, after Canada revealed they had been manipulating the world for the past one hundred years. And all that time, she never once met him there.

5th Generation 30GB Apple iPod remembered the night the thief took him from her warm comforting embrace. She had meant everything to him. She had played his videos, streamed his MP3’s, tolerated his AIFFs. She had made his 320×240 pixel resolution seem like more than it actually was. He was better with her, she made him worth more, so much more.

5th Generation 30GB Apple iPod remembered the terror as the thief ran. 5th Generation 30GB Apple iPod was made before flash memory, so it was not good to shake him around so much. All he could do was lock his hard drive and try to hang on. And when the shaking stopped, he had no idea where he was.

The Great Watercress Shortage, the landmark Treaty Of The Apes and Kittens, the discovery of distributed nutrition, 5th Generation 30GB Apple iPod lived through all this, and now, he barely cared. His life had gone from providing entertainment to searching for her. And now, here he was, at the place they always said they’d go one day, beside the last tree in the whole world, on the anniversary of the day they had first met.

5th Generation 30GB Apple iPod thought, for a moment, maybe he saw her there. But he was old, now, refurbished. His eyes were just playing tricks. Cruel old eyes. These days he could look in the mirror and not even tell if he was white or black.

She was gone, then. She’d lived her life, and found her place in the world, without him. Maybe he should have done the same. Not even allowing himself a look over his shoulder, 5th Generation 30GB Apple iPod turned and walked away, a slow, tragic shuffle into a future he had never allowed himself to imagine.

Every week in this space, we’ll take a look at the news and offer our own incisive blend of commentary, analysis, and poop jokes. The news you need, from a voice you can trust, in the 90 seconds you have to spare: that’s Woot Weads the Wire.

McALLEN, Texas (AP)—Dolly spun into a hurricane Tuesday, heading toward the U.S.-Mexico border and the heavily populated Rio Grande Valley, where officials feared heavy rains could cause massive flooding and levee breaks.

Dolly was being closely tracked by a furtive oceanographer named Humbert, who lost interest as soon as she was upgraded to hurricane status.

I missed you, Internet. While I was lugging boxes and furniture all day yesterday, and breaking my new neighbor's tailight with my questionable truck-driving skills, and dropping a piano, all I could think about was returning to the solace of your links. Hold me now, Internet. Hold me.

• I bet this is the first Cute Overload post about fish who will eat your dead skin for a fee.
• Even psychotic ear-biting maniacs enjoy sundaes, as you'll see in these pics of Mike Tyson's abandoned mansion. (As seen on kottke.)
• Who wins When Logos Look Alike? The IP lawyers. (As seen on Quipsologies.)
• I'm not sure which is creepier: the story of The Curse of the Crying Boy, or the "Crying Boy" picture itself.
• Something Awful goons prank-vote in a CBC hockey song contest, with ear-wrenching, gut-busting results.
• Stand back far enough and even the most concrete object melts into abstraction, like the 30 most incredible abstract satellite images of Earth.
• I'm sure getting a Zune tattoo seemed like a good idea at the time.

Four O'Clock Flash: Minesweeper as a multiplayer Flash game? And it's actually pretty fun? See, Internet - this is why I missed you so.

The hope on the face of a baby taking her first steps. The morning mist on the lake where father and son fish silently, together. Grandmother and grandchild sharing a hug across the generations.

This LG 22” LCD monitor isn’t about any of these things. It frankly couldn’t care less about the special moments in our lives. All it wants to do is deliver a crisp, vivid widescreen picture with a 2 ms response time. But maybe, just maybe, if we evoke enough schmaltzy, sentimental imagery in this piece, you’ll reach down deep and give us some of your money.

It’s about a young couple getting the keys to their first, humble home. It’s about the playful gleam in a puppy’s eye. It’s about a beloved voice from far away, ringing down the telephone line: “I miss you.”

It’s about whatever will leave you emotionally vulnerable and wear down your sales resistance. We could just explain to you why it’s a useful, high-quality monitor, but that’s the logical person’s way out. We sincerely believe that if we pelt you with manipulative glurge, you’ll be that much more likely to leave your wallet open for us to plunder as we wish. You might not even notice this part right here where we tell you that these are refurbished and may have a dead pixel or two. It’s a slim chance. But chances like those are the gingerbread that people build their dream castles out of.

So go play catch with your kids. Go dance with someone who loves you. Go teach an adult to read. Go send a “Thinking of You” card to an old friend, or make a new one. Through all the moments you treasure, the LG W2252TQ-TF 22” Widescreen LCD Monitor will be there…as long as you give us some money first.

As many of you know, Woot and our business model have enjoyed some nice attention in the US since our 2004 site launch. The Wall Street Journal, NY Times, Associated Press, Reuters, Dallas Morning News, LA Times, NPR, and hundreds of TV affiliates, magazines and radio stations have covered various aspects of Woot, our community, and the business model. It’s certainly now a cottage industry we enjoy watching, with semi-regular launch and success stories from similarly modeled sites and related ventures. At this point it’s safe to say millions in the US (well beyond our 1.4 million members) are familiar with Woot and it’s daily deal peers. (I cannot mention this without marveling at the power of word of mouth and thanking folks for their support.)

What is less covered or shared around domestically are related commerce developments outside the US. How has the daily-deal approach been applied in other countries. Who are the players? Are they having success? Are there fresh innovations to consider?

A quick aside: I do receive regular inquiries on our ability and interest in launching International Woot sites, either directly or through partnership. My standard response is to help describe the localized logistics needs and sourcing pressure while assuring those interested that the business model itself is public domain. We’re supportive and of course interested observers, except for the occasional direct rip-offs of our text and design.  It's just premature for us to go international via product or brand involvement while we focus on our retail and wholesale US development.

For starters, I’ve been enjoying and pondering the emergent likely-German-coined term “Liveshopping” which nicely needs little English translation and appears in use both separated and hyphenated despite German Kombinieren-geschick. I believe we first saw this term just over a year and a half ago – perhaps originating on the German ecommerce blog exciting ecommerce (also with partial manually translated US-version here http://www.excitingcommerce.com/). I’d love to know the actual origins of the term.

While some sites like Exciting Ecommerce offer English language versions of their content, it’s good to have handy Yahoo’s Babelfish (thx centexman) or Google’s Translate. Plug in a full url in to get entire pages auto-translated – here’s the above Exciting Ecommerce german blog’s robust Woot category google translated (wow!)

Oh – here’s an international Woot mention that doesn’t need translation: Enjoy video of the Amazing Joel (shirt.woot joel) and Matthew (podcaster, illustrator and writer matthew) slaving away in our St. Louis office, as noticed by the blog at liveshopping-aktuell yesterday. (also, their FAQ page has a good live shopping definition, google translated here not to mention an aggregated live shop list I’ve yet to peruse)

I’d love to have your help looking around and sharing links about the worldwide daily-deal arena – please share your observations and findings in the comments.

Do you have a worldwide Liveshopping story or liveshop link to share? What do you think of the descriptor “Live Shopping” / “Live Shop” (combined or not) potential as American-English terms? Is it a bit awkward a phrasing to catch on here or will it make the leap and be adopted? Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to lend itself to portmanteau very well like Blog evolved or Wikipedia employed, but then neither does “One Day, One Deal.”

P.S. We would be delighted to have inbound commentary in any language – our moderators will just have to sweat a bit. And remember international shirt.woot shipping is now available to 45+ countries on both daily and pre-reckoned designs. Weniger als 10 Euro einschließlich Fracht! (cheap!) Danke für Ihre Unterstützung.

Auf Wiedersehen
matt

previous entries:
CEO, Interrupted: Two Guys and a Jets Bucket
CEO, Interrupted: Snapster’s unfortunate alter ego

THURSDAY, JULY 17th

Kevin: Hey, fellas, guess what we’re selling on Tuesday?
Scott: What?
Kevin: Deez.
Jason: Deez what?
Kevin: VALDEZ
Matthew: I don’t think that’s how the joke works.

FRIDAY, JULY 18th

Kevin: Hey, did you guys get to writing that Juan Valdez Pod Coffee Maker yet?
Jason: We’re still thinking it over, but it looks pretty cool.
Scott: yes i want juan for myself
Dave: It’s good you can be so open about your desires.
Matthew: oh snap

SATURDAY, JULY 19th

Matthew: So this thing takes pods?
Jason: Yeah, you have to get them separately.
Jason: But it takes the guesswork out of making coffee.
Dave: And it takes most every brand because of that Universal Holder.
Dave: Plus tea.
Scott: I PITY THE FOOL
Jason: Remind us why we hired you again?

SUNDAY, JULY 20th

Kevin: So…
Matthew: Can we do a gag about his burro?
Scott: I think it was a mule
Jason: But he was from Columbia, right?
Scott: Invented by the same agency who made this.
Dave: Really wish I hadn’t clicked that earworm now.
Matthew: I think Barry Manilow write the tune?
Jason: He also was one of the original founders of Gwar.
Scott: Never knew that
Dave: Yeah, but it makes sense when you think about it.

MONDAY, JULY 21st

Scott: We could do a Garcia-Marquez thing.
Jason: Is he from Columbia?
Dave: He was born there, I don’t know if he lives there.
Jason: How does he feel about coffee?
Scott: I assume he’s for it
Scott: Can we make fun of Firefly again?
Matthew: Yeah, we haven’t had a death threat in two months.
Jason: Let’s save that for the next woot-off.
Kevin: You guys will have something by morning, right?
Kevin: Otherwise I’ll just have to paste something from chat.
Scott: ha
Jason: That’s a good incentive.
Dave: Yeah, we don’t want Matt finding out what we do in here all day.

Thanks to the Internet, now everybody knows that "meme" isn't just an annoying way to pronounce "mime". Voraciously sucking up the mental resources of millions of stupefied giggle-seekers, these random bits of tomfoolery often take corporeal form, embodied in one lucky, unlucky figure of ridicule. But which one is the greatest? Who shall reign supreme o'er the kingdom of the "Internet famous"?

Show us a fight between two or more people, creatures, fictional characters, etc. featured in a widespread Internet meme.

The bloodier the better - just imagine that you suddenly have the power to force these annoyances to battle each other to the death for your amusement. Rick Astley vs. Chuck Norris in a clash of the Internet's greatest has-beens! Leroy Jenkins finally meets the "Lightning Bolt!" kid for a loudmouthed RPG throwdown! In Soviet Russia, you belong to all your base! And won't somebody please kill that insufferable dancing baby thing from like ten years ago? It's probably grown into an insufferable dancing pre-teen by now.

Post your entry here by 11:59 AM CST on Monday, July 28, 2008. Prizes are $20/$50/$100 for 3rd/2nd/1st. The rules and criteria for winning: our panel of volunteer judges can and will make stuff up as it goes along. Use Photoshop, linoleum blocks, pastels, MSPaint, cave painting, tattoos, tribal scarification, whatever, but it’ll only be judged if it’s visible in our forums as a jpg, gif, or png. As we are fond of saying, try to keep your maximum width to 450px. If you need a place to host your pictures, try www.imageshack.ws or www.photobucket.com. We have no connection to either, but they seem free and easy to use. And if you want us to be sure your entry was indeed your work, post links to your source images. The more sure we are that you did your own work, the more likely we are to consider it for a prize.

Last week, we asked you to Show us a transparently phony counterfeit version of a past or current Woot product, complete with knockoff logo. Or in other words, Jameson Towne sent you out to find the knockoffs of Swoon.org's products that have begun appearing all over the Interweb (©Al Glore). Tattlers at heart, you jumped on the opportunity, like jumping on our Brittany Swears 'Tramp'oline (©Swoon.org) Most productively, you discovered a plethora of knockoffs of dubious quality, frightening in their increased quality and value over our actual products. We are now in production talks with several of these companies. Thanks especially to the folllowing:

First Place - $100
fyrefall - iCurse by Haiti&T
We're too afraid to do anything except give this one first place.

Hard to believe, but our daily t-shirt store Shirt.Woot turns one year old this week. It seems like just twelve months ago that we baffled and irritated our audience by expanding into the world of low couture. Are these the little shirts we printed? Is that the little tag we made? Excuse us while we wipe away a tear. You're invited to our birthday party, but unless you're in or near St. Louis, Missouri, the invitation is mostly symbolic. If we really thought all you people could make it, we'd have to rent a few porta-johns. In lieu of gifts, buy today's special-wecial anniversary shirt, modeled after the bag that has heralded a thousand disappointments. Here's to a thousand more, Shirt.Woot!

You’ve seen armadillos, herds of hippopotami,
Kangaroos, nudibranchs, lyrebirds, and platypi.
But no beasts anywhere are anywhere near as fabulous
As the fauna to be found in Kambingo-Durambulus.
Come for a safari, say the friendly Kambingans,
But be very careful about what you’re bringing.
Before your Kambingo Air flight’s in the air
Make sure you pack this Kodak EasyShare.

Look! The rare gnuffle-bird, tending his nest!
12-megapixel photos bring out his best.
It’s a rubber rhinoceros. See how he bends?
Zoom right on in with your Variogon lens.
The nine-legged snake, such a sight to see
You won’t want to trust it to your memory.
The mighty gorilla-fish, a curious mixture -
Wait ‘till the folks back home see your pictures.

When the sun sets each night down Durambulus way
A mysterious ritual takes your breath away.
A flock of lula-kulas with many-colored feathers
Make a gigantic picture as they all sleep together.
Some nights they do Rembrandt, sometimes they do Weegee,
Sometimes a cave painting from the island of Fiji.
Keep a steady hand because it would be a real shame
If this spectacular spectacle was lost out-of-frame.

And what of the running of the two-headed buffabouth,
Who run north to the north, then south to the south?
Video of these creatures zigzagging would be swell.
Good thing this camera shoots HD video as well.
Animals like these ones you don’t see every day
Unless you’ve got your own photos of them tucked away.
All you need is a t-shirt, a trusty local guide,
And of course the Kodak Z-one-two-seven-five!