It's a Woot-Off!

Woot is currently in the middle of a woot-off. Here is where you can see a list of the woot-off items so far (see July 19). I've been a member of Woot for a long time. And it too is part of Web 2.0. There is a large community of people who post comments and get to know each other and who have their own special language and inside jokes that is described in Wikipedia here. Woot has a great sense of humor and it's podcasts, contests and item descriptions are worth taking a look at for humor value alone. It pioneered the "One Day, One Deal" marketing model. The WikiMindMap of Woot is pretty interesting also.

For those of us who woot regularly, a woot-off is the time when you are glued to your computer, waiting anxiously for the current item to sell out and the new one to appear. There are woot-off checkers that ding when an item is sold out so you know to hurry to your PC and start F5'ing to catch the first appearance of the new item. Things sell out in minutes if they are good. A few of the things people look forward to are the Flying Woot Monkeys that scream as they fly and wear a woot cape and hat, the ubiquitous LeakFrog and of course, the prize of all prizes, the Bag of Crap! A bag of crap is where you buy 3 pieces of random crap for $1 each and wait for your crap to arrive. People have received 61" TVs and really quite extravagant crap and it is always worth more than $3 (even if some of the crap is broken), and has the excitement value of waiting for it to arrive and see what you get.

Needless to say, it is a feeding frenzy when the BoC appears. Servers crash, pages won't load and it is a free for all. I've never gotten a BoC. It really seems impossible unless you know the tricks and have a really high-speed connection and have dedicated your life to getting one. And they sell out in seconds. So I have finally quit worrying about them, I've been too frustrated, too many times. But regardless of that, It's a Woot-Off!!!!

~Susie