What about us Luddites who haven't succumbed to the Facebookification of the world?

I second that comment. Why do companies continue to limit their dialog with the public by assuming every potential customer is on Facebook?

I'll add to the theme here. Boo, Facebook! Yay, Woot!! Boo, Woot! on Facebook!!!

because everyone should do everything that you guys want to do? is that how woot should run their company? by the way you like things? the millions and millions of people on facebook have no say?

Same. Or, rather, I have a Facebook account, but I don't use it to give Facebook free demographic data about myself. (I post work history so people can find me if we've lost touch.)

I also don't watch over it like the dying embers of a fire. Too thick a metaphor. So even if I did use Facebook, I'm not going to see anything on it.

From Woot's perspective, why give Facebook an easier time selling other companies' crap to your customers? Don't you already have a perfectly good way of connecting with the folks you know are willing to spend money on Woot stuff...?

matthew wrote:Guys, participation is not mandatory.

Sure, but it's frustrating to see companies favor patrons of an unrelated business over, say, their own loyal customers...especially when that unrelated business has earned a bad reputation for protecting its own users.

And on the business side, it's hard to imagine a small flood of "that guy you don't actually remember going to school with LIKES something you've never heard of" appearing in a few thousand news feeds is going to drive much business. Your business, I mean, not Facebook's. It's fine for Facebook.

god can everyone stop whining and crying? You dont like facebook? you cant be on it? good, don't friggin enter their crap giveaway!

a lot of people whine that they are at work working when Bundles of Crayons normally go on sale and they always miss out, well if they have a facebook, this gives them a shot in hell of actually landing a piece of crap. Should woot have bended to their wishes and given away Bundles of Crayons at like 9:30pm at night, rather than when office drones are in traffic on their way home?

Bottom line, do what you want, if you want to enter a contest that a company is running, stop whining about the fact that you don't 'normally' use the tool they are using for their contest. Suck it up and either use that tool, or cry to yourself over a pint of haagen-dasz, but what will whining over the internet do?

Everyone needs to stop thinking that the world revolves around them and their interests, got a whole country full of whiners

OK, I'll play. First, I apologize if the tone of my question offended you; I'm glad that you didn't do any whining in response.

Second, I didn't mean it as a complaint so much as a request to level the playing field. I don't begrudge you Facebookers your opportunity, just request that the rest of us be considered as well.

Facebook is not for me (I can't imagine why people would care about what I do and, if something they do becomes my business, they'll tell me) but I don't begrudge others your social outlets. To each his own. Maybe I'm simply jealous that my life isn't sufficiently interesting that anyone would care.

Keep on Wootin'

W00t = Wonderful!

W00t + Amazon = Sucks!

W00t + Amazon + Facebook = I hope you go bankrupt!

So much butthurt in this thread right now.

boooooo.

Woot, I think you'll discover there are quite a few of us who don't use facebook and other social media. Instead of trolling social networks, we troll your comment boards instead.

matthew wrote:Guys, participation is not mandatory.

Matthew,
if participation in Woot! was mandatory you'd have fewer fans... I'm here because I want to be, and because in general Woot has provided lots of excellent reasons for me to want to be here, and not just the Bundles of Crayons that any Woot! customer had a shot at (had...). I'm a Woot! customer. And until recently that was enough to be allowed entrance to the whole panoply of products.

Last month, and now here, Woot! is saying we have to be customers of a third party to participate in the 'premier' activity, the quest for crap. That is mandatory before the choice to participate in the game can be made.

Being a Woot! customer isn't good enough anymore? So unless we join facebook, we're no longer in the Woot! elite? We can buy mattresses and vacuum cleaners, but crap is too good for us?

Its disappointing.

Some of us have been woot! members for so long that we can remember the good old days when we checked woot! at midnight every day hoping for a Bundles of Crayons or flashing purple lights for a woot-off but settled for great deals instead. Nowadays it's not even worth checking woot! daily because the deals aren't that good anymore.

roscoebaby wrote:W00t = Wonderful!

W00t + Amazon = Sucks!

W00t + Amazon + Facebook = I hope you go bankrupt!

I think your math is hilarious and skewed by the power of zero.



...

/divides by zero

I think the hate here is more facebook rooted than "woot participating in social media" related. I don't think there'd be as strong a reaction if it was something run through twitter or google plus or tumblr or whatever the hell else. But Facebook is the evil internet squid, sending its tentacles everywhere and making it impossible to completely escape its grip. So many websites now require signing into facebook in order to participate, or at the very least, moving so much of their primary communication and audience-interaction to facebook that the choice becomes to either sell your soul to Mark Zuckerberg or to be condemned to forever being on the outside, looking in. So it's just a touchy issue.

That said, for shame, woot! Don't give in to the evil internet squid!

agingdragqueen wrote:If you guys peeked over to our Facebook page (which you don't need an account for) you'd see that you can enter without a Facebook account and we even have a thread over here that is updating with all the information.

ADQ, the fine print in the email said we had to 'like' Woot on facebook. I like Woot! But Not on Facebook so unless you are indicating that the facebook 'like' is actually optional and the "really really like" Woot thing is good enough, it sounds like its still a no-go

But thanks very much for caring enough to post!

matthew wrote:If it was mandatory, I expect we'd have WAY MORE fans! Like, to the tune of all the fans.

Your definition of 'fan' and mine differ; you'd have all the folks, maybe a lot would also be fans.

Your disinclination to use Facebook strikes me as not a very good reason for us not to try to occasionally engage with users who do. (Surely you must have noticed there are a lot of them.)

Of course not and I'm not suggesting that. Engage away! But does that mean you have to disengage a portion of your existing customer base? Last month the crap came in several episodes; one was announced on Twitter _and_ Facebook; all the later ones were only announced on Facebook (though to be fair I don't think the 'like' requirement was there last month). And now this week we're back to Facebook only.

If you just watched Woot, you were on the outs then and now. If you use a social media site other than Facebook you were out after that first announcement last month. Too bad, so sad.

Twice in a row is certainly perceivable as a 'trend', or the start of one, and worthy of comment.

But I bet I can reassure you: There is no "elite." There is just this half-baked promotion that you don't want to take part in, and that's a completely valid decision that really should not cause you any of the consternation it apparently has. I'm sure a lot of people will not take part in it and still go on to lead rich, full, happy lives. I myself am not going to take part in it! We're both going to be fine.

Also, I've seen some of the crap that's at stake. Rest easy; it is "premier" in no way at all. The only thing you'll be missing out on is whatever fun there is to be had, and it seems like you're saying it doesn't sound like any fun to you at all, so I think you're making the right choice.

You are mistaken; I do want to take part in it, but the prerequisite is not to my taste. It is not consternation, it is disappointment.

And I think from your insider position, you are missing one of the points about Woot! crap to many of us outsiders... Woot! is like a store that we like to visit every day; you don't _always_ have something we may want to buy but its always worth stopping... Then periodically, when crap is on the line, its _party_ time.

Lining up to bob for wormy apples in hopes of getting the one with the coin in it, flinging baseballs at the dunk tank target hoping yours is the one that gets through, aiming browser refreshes like the squirt gun aimed at the clown to blow up its balloon brain. It doesn't matter if you get a Sansa or a flat screen TV, earbuds with wax included or a whoopee cushion that was used in unsavory ways, (well ok, some of those are better than others, but ALL of them are cool) it is 'the awesome' and the highlight (along with trying to say just the right pithy thing to get a quality post, or even a 'special package').

Now the party's on, and I (and others who posted last time, and this) are outside looking in, because to get in we have to get a ticket from the store down the street that we don't like, because it puts the wrong kind of spice in your food and might photocopy your wallet contents when you ask for the ticket.

Just being a Woot customer is absolutely still good enough. Just being you is good enough.

Darn straight. Just please consider having some parties where all of us are welcome to take our chances. You know, like it was until a few months ago.

And with that I bow out. Thank you for taking the time to respond. It is appreciated.

rachelc258 wrote:So it's just a touchy issue.

Beyond the Facebook security aspect, I'm also baffled. If a web-based business needs to look for a website where its users might be inclined to congregate, someone else's website isn't exactly the smartest place to start looking.

Some Woot fans might on Twitter. Many Woot fans might be on Facebook. But with 100% certainty, all Woot fans visit Woot.

Maybe (hopefully) not all the potential fans show up here, but the potential fans also aren't going to Like you on Facebook.

From a purely business-side analysis, I see zero benefit to Woot and tons of benefit to Facebook to drive traffic away from here. Partial credit could be given for driving to an Amazon site, maybe, but giving Zuckerberg free money is just silly.

(See also, the New York Times boneheaded move requiring a Facebook account for "validated" commenters. No benefit to them, but great free data collection to Facebook about politically active people.)

ooooooooooooh! Someone said panoply.

Pardon me whilst I swoon.

matthew wrote:Actually, visiting the site proper is just one way -- and not nearly the fastest-growing way -- to keep up with what's going on at Woot.

You may want to have your certainty levels checked!

60% of the time I'm certain all the time.

matthew wrote:Actually, visiting the site proper is just one way -- and not nearly the fastest-growing way -- to keep up with what's going on at Woot.

You may want to have your certainty levels checked!

That may be true. It's also obviously true that not all Woot users come back to the site throughout the day, unlike certain people who really should be working but will remain nameless so I--I mean "they"--don't get in trouble.

But (not counting phone apps, which are really just the web site in drag) we all have to come here eventually, even if the reason is found elsewhere. This is, after all, the park bench under which the lunch bag of unmarked bills goes before you'll release our monkeys and refurbished tablets and whatnot.