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June 30, 2010 3:27 PM   Subscribe

Today's woot: Woot.
posted by jayCampbell (38 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Sniped, dammit.
posted by ardgedee at 3:29 PM on June 30, 2010


Everybody at Amazon works on a, like a door, for some reason. It's like a thing.
posted by infinitewindow at 3:29 PM on June 30, 2010 [1 favorite]


More direct links:

If you prefer to get your business news for more conventional sources than a rapping monkey puppet, see the Woot.com blog.
posted by infinitewindow at 3:30 PM on June 30, 2010 [2 favorites]


World's best CEO letter.
posted by bearwife at 3:31 PM on June 30, 2010 [21 favorites]


Hey, maybe Amazon can spare a few servers for when Bandoliers of Carrots show up.
posted by kmz at 3:32 PM on June 30, 2010 [2 favorites]


Yeah, too bad Amazon gets a truck full of "Bag o' Crap".
posted by GuyZero at 3:36 PM on June 30, 2010


infinitewindow: If you prefer to get your business news for more conventional sources than a rapping monkey puppet,

The fact that such "you's" exist just made me tremendously sad...
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:36 PM on June 30, 2010 [2 favorites]


i love rapping monkey news release. i think all businesses should get one.
posted by nadawi at 3:41 PM on June 30, 2010


@jbezos congrats on your BOC, lol!
posted by boo_radley at 3:48 PM on June 30, 2010


Everybody at Amazon works on a, like a door, for some reason. It's like a thing.

I've heard it's actually more expensive than just buying desks from Ikea.
posted by Artw at 3:49 PM on June 30, 2010


This Bag of Crap, it vibrates?
posted by tommasz at 3:49 PM on June 30, 2010


Reminds of the time Amazon acquired Zappos.

It's like Amazon has this dorky kid complex, so they keep buying the cool kids to be their friends, hoping a bit of their awesomeness might rub off on them.
posted by jabberjaw at 4:00 PM on June 30, 2010 [3 favorites]


Neither of which (Woot.com or Amazon.com) ship to Canada.

Argh.
posted by swimming naked when the tide goes out at 4:01 PM on June 30, 2010


I've heard it's actually more expensive than just buying desks from Ikea.

Doubtful. It's a door. With 4X4s for legs. I was once visiting on "take your kid to work day" and one of the children's activities was to make miniature door desks. A reminiscence of the door desk.
posted by donovan at 4:03 PM on June 30, 2010 [2 favorites]


Neither of which (Woot.com or Amazon.com) ship to Canada.

Amazon.com definitely has shipped to me in Canada before. I'm really hoping that this means Woot starts, too!
posted by Lemurrhea at 4:05 PM on June 30, 2010


So that's what the big secret was. I wonder if this is the same secret that someone I know who knows someone who knows some of the Woot people had been keeping under wraps for a while.
posted by limeonaire at 4:11 PM on June 30, 2010


So, was this a heavily discounted impulse purchase?
posted by brundlefly at 4:42 PM on June 30, 2010 [6 favorites]


So, was this a heavily discounted impulse purchase?

And possibly something you could find elsewhere with an even better discount, if you hadn't already purchased the first one. Plus some unique t-shirts.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:05 PM on June 30, 2010


Well, crap, now there's another place I can't shop.
posted by madajb at 5:16 PM on June 30, 2010


"Woot". Stupidest fucking name for a company ever.
posted by mrnutty at 5:33 PM on June 30, 2010


I really need to know what this means for wine.woot
posted by maurice at 5:35 PM on June 30, 2010


maurice - every piece of information woot has put out today says "nothing changes", so wine woot is probably safe.
posted by nadawi at 5:41 PM on June 30, 2010


So is the deal of the day on sellout.woot.com still going to be in a big frame on shopping yahoo's front page? Because that's one way to really chafe a competitors hide.
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:06 PM on June 30, 2010


That CEO Letter is so thoroughly full of win: "Several months ago, we were all sitting on Jeff Bezos’s bumper drinking orange Mad Dog and trying not to be noticed...."

Also, I wonder if this means they'll start accepting Amazon Prime, which would likely send my volume of impulse purchases through the roof....
posted by schmod at 6:31 PM on June 30, 2010


I'm going to start a web site that sells one company per day to Amazon.com, until it's sold out.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:03 PM on June 30, 2010 [1 favorite]


Now that it has sunk in, it feels like the way it was announced (both the CEO letter and the monkey video) was trying a little too hard to put the company's irreverence on full display, if only to reassure the part of its customer base who love it for its independence. (And scanning the Woot! forum on the topic shows that they need to; reaction has gone from 70% positive in the first hour to 70% negative later, with a lot of 'never buy anything from YOU agains').

This is not a total surprise, if you've been paying attention. Amazon made a US$4million investment in Woot! early in '08, with future options to buy the whole thing.

The best first thing that could happen may be an improvement in Woot!'s system infrastructure with a little bit of Amazon's cloud computing mojo (The site crashes occurring every time they offer their $1 or $3 Mystery Deals, appropriately named the "Bag of Crap", are part of its 'charm'), but then, they should have had access to that before now.

All I know is tonight at Midnight Central Time, all eyes will be on Woot! to see it's first scheduled daily item(s) of the Amazon era. So many are predicting it'll be a Kindle.
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:30 PM on June 30, 2010


oh, the Bag of Crap is also known as the Bang of Carp, Box of Cereal, Barrel of Crude, Bottle of Cabernet, Bandolier of Carrots, Bulgarian Olympic Committee, Blinged-Out Cabbage, Bananas or Cherries, Bushels of Cooties, Banjo of Consternation, Baiting Other Consumers, Berries of Constipation, Best of Carson, Box of Chocolates, Bride of Chucky, Belgian Office Cubicle, Bridge Over Cleveland, Braille on Cookies, Box of Cigars, Box of Crayons, Blue Oyster Cult, Bank Of China, Breakfast Of Champions, Boards of Canada, Bureau of Census, Body of Christ, Board of Corrections, Bottom Of Container, Bone of Contention, Beginning Of Cycle, Ball of Confusion, Beverage Of Choice, Beer O'Clock, Band of Comrades, Block of Concrete, Bands of Colors, Bottom Of Clutch, Best of Chums, Board of Certification, Brotherhood of Catfishermen, Breast of Chicken, Battle of Chancellorsville and Beyond Our Control.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:03 PM on June 30, 2010 [2 favorites]


every piece of information woot has put out today says "nothing changes"

I appreciate their exact wording in this matter; Woot is going to remain the place we've "grown to know and tolerate". Because that pretty much sums up my feelings about Woot. It's the place where you accidently buy a cheap salad spinner you don't need because you were browsing the web while drunk. I mean, it's probably a good price for a salad spinner and all, but whatever.
posted by Justinian at 9:00 PM on June 30, 2010 [1 favorite]


All I know is tonight at Midnight Central Time, all eyes will be on Woot! to see it's first scheduled daily item(s) of the Amazon era. So many are predicting it'll be a Kindle.

Yep, it's a Kindle, current model, NOT refurb, $149. Of course, I'm NOT going to buy one...
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:06 PM on June 30, 2010


This is the one which sells through Amazon for $189.99? Not a bad deal. If I would use a Kindle. Which I won't.

I can't believe I'm turning into my grandpa.
posted by Justinian at 12:14 AM on July 1, 2010


I guess I don't understand why this acquisition is such a big deal, aside from, presumably, the founders of Woot are now all incredibly rich.
posted by crunchland at 3:38 AM on July 1, 2010


Reminds of the time Amazon acquired Zappos.

Well, that was a year ago, and Zappos doesn't seem to have changed at all (including a recent upgrade for me to overnight shipping), so I guess that they were honest about not messing with it.

Which does kind of make this acquisition non-news. "Company X acquired; nothing will change."
posted by smackfu at 6:51 AM on July 1, 2010


LOL woot
posted by Mister_A at 7:21 AM on July 1, 2010


Everybody at Amazon works on a, like a door, for some reason. It's like a thing.

It's true. But I hear it's done for cost. The legs are just wood beams tacked on. Some managers apparently have hacksaws handy to make quick adjustments for new hires.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:22 AM on July 1, 2010


Well, this may mean that Woot becomes more efficient at processing orders and getting stuff shipped more quickly, which would be awesome. On the other hand, this could wreck them which would mean that I could start going to sleep earlier than 12:05am, as I'd no longer have to obsessively check what the new deal is every day.

Which could also be nice. You know silver-linings and all that.
posted by quin at 8:14 AM on July 1, 2010


Less than 3 weeks ago my two leak frogs (from Woot) saved my basement from crazy flooding by alerting me early on that there was a problem.

Woot FTW
posted by exhilaration at 11:23 AM on July 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


Neither of which (Woot.com or Amazon.com) ship to Canada.

Amazon.com definitely ships to Canada. They just don't ship *certain* things (electronics, if I'm not mistaken, among other things).
posted by antifuse at 7:42 AM on July 2, 2010




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