Brad

A few more weeks. Mid-to-late September is whey they are normally updated.

Here's a CNN story. No fee through October 31st on most items, but some exclusions apply. http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/04/news/companies/toys-r-us-layaway/

Also, if anyone has an area of expertise and would either like to do a "guest" webcast on their own or be interviewed by Dev for a special episode, send him a PM.

When the forum gets a little busier. So if you all want contests, start referring others to GD

Keep the ideas coming. A lot of good slogans so far. The caution sign and jersey themes are also good ones. Going to be tough to decide this year...

I don't know how much weight I'd put into that article. I believe almost anyone can submit articles for that site. I really doubt all those stores have announced plans so early.

Another idea someone had was to put a QR code (those newfangled square barcode things you see everywhere) so if someone sees it, they can scan it with their phone and go right to the site.

What about orange for the shirt color? The site's colors are blue and orange yet we've never had an orange shirt. Maybe not a super-bright neon orange but something more "muted"? I'm going to wait another month or so before ordering so we'll have plenty of time to get suggestions in this thread. I'll post some designs once we decide on something and we can fine-tune it as needed.

Yep, same as every year. Which is why I don't understand people wanting the forum open more than 2 months before that

Keep in mind that we want these to appeal to a lot of people. Not everyone wants tie-dye or something that makes them seem like a crazy lunatic talking about mace

Yeah, Black Friday is on the earliest possible day this year, the 23rd. Next year, it'll be on the 29th, which is the latest possible date.

Anyone have any cool ideas for what this year's BF shirt should look like or say? Slogans, color of the shirt, design, etc...?

We took the data from the past 6 years to get an average of how many days before BF each store's ad typically gets leaked here on GD. We then took those numbers and made a "calendar" for this year based on this year's BF date of 11/23. Here are some of the more popular stores and when they could possibly be posted this year based on past history: 10/1/12 Ace Hardware 10/9/12 Half Price Books 10/13/12 Harbor Freight 10/27/12 Sears 11/3/12 Gander Mountain Lowe's 11/3/12 Office Max Walgreens 11/6/12 Military BX Kmart Macy's 11/7/12 Kohls 11/8/12 Navy Exchange Costco JCPenney 11/9/12 Target Best Buy Old Navy Radio Shack CVS Pharmacy 11/10/12 Dell Home hhgregg 11/11/12 Toys R Us Meijer Bass Pro Shops Staples 11/12/12 Pep Boys Modell's Big Lots Office Depot Michael's Kmart Thanksgiving 11/13/12 Walmart Dick's Sporting Goods Home Depot BJ Wholesale 11/14/12 Cabela's Menards 11/15/12 PetSmart Sports Authority Sam's Club 11/16/12 Gamestop Ikea Again, these are just guesses based on past years. Don't whine if these dates don't hold up this year

BLACK FRIDAY AD ITEM LISTINGS: http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/BlackFridaySaleAds BLACK FRIDAY AD SCANS: http://forums.gottadeal.com/forumdisplay.php?164-Black-Friday-Ads

Here are the dates (according to our records) when various ads were posted during the past 6 years: http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/Dates And here are links to text lists of the items in the ads (at least the ones in our database) dating back to 2003: 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

We made some changes to the forum organization today: 1. The Black Friday forums are open. The holiday discussion and store-specific sub-forums will open in a month or two, but the main BF board is open. 2. Due to lack of activity, the Contests forum has been closed. The major threads like "post your wins" and the other stickied threads have been moved to the Deal Discussion forum: http://forums.gottadeal.com/forumdisplay.php?4-Deal-Finder-amp-Deal-Discussion. Feel free to use that forum for any future contest-related discussion. There are also many other sites that focus solely on contests which you may find useful. 3. The Travel & Finance forums were merged back into their original home, the GottaTalk Lounge (our off-topic board). Access to the Lounge requires you to be a member for a short period of time and make a few posts on the board. Once you have done this you'll be granted access within an hour. The Lounge is a great place to interact with the GD community, make new friends and discuss nearly any non-deal related topic. 4. The Freebies forum is now a member of the top "hot deals" group of forums, so if you can't find it, look there. If you have any questions about these changes, please PM myself or a sitewide moderator. Update 9/4/12: We have also merged the Deal Finder & Deal Discussion forums today. We've noticed a lot of overlapping between these two forums, so to make things easier, we're just going to have a single forum for all those threads which are not regular posted deal threads.

The BF forum is now open. The whining can stop We're not going to send out any mass e-mails yet, so consider this the "soft opening" just for those of you who are already here. So if you want to start any threads, now is your chance.

100 Days Until Black Friday! Who's ready? (and who, like me, wishes it were at least 200 days away? )

Tomorrow according to my calculations

Last year we opened the BF forum exactly 3 months from BF (which would be August 23rd this year). The year before we did it the 19th I believe. So it will be sometime around then. In the next 2 weeks most likely. As for Dev, last I heard he was keeping busy and had some new projects in addition to his full-time job. Don't know if he'll be able to devote as much time to BF and the site this year, but we'll find out in a few short months.

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

The Week of No Sleep