Brad

CONTEST OVER! WINNERS POSTED! HOW TO WIN: We need you to help spread the word about the Black Friday @ GottaDeal.com web site on your favorite social networking site. You will earn one entry for this contest for each of the following tasks you complete. So the more you do, the better your chances of being selected to win one of the survival kits. Task #1: Post a message on Twitter that includes a link to the BF site and our Twitter account (@gottadeal). You must have at least 5 Twitter followers to be eligible for this task. Task #2: Create and upload a Youtube video that is somehow related to Black Friday. Link to the BF site in the "description" section of the video. Be creative! Task #3: Join our fan group on Facebook and add a link to the BF site on your profile. Go to the Applications tab at the bottom, click "Links" and then "Post a link" on the right. Task #4: Post something about Black Friday and link to the BF site on another message board you visit WITHOUT SPAMMING. Only do this if you are 100% sure it's allowed. Once you are done, post in this thread letting us know which of the 4 tasks you have completed and give us the appropriate URLs so we can verify everything. If for some reason you don't want to post the links publicly, submit them via the contact form here and be sure to include your forum username, as you must be a registered forum member to enter this contest. Entries will be accepted until 10pm ET on Sunday, October 18th. At that point we'll randomly select 5 winners from all eligible entries and they will each win a survival kit! Good luck to all!

toy catalog in on their site: http://www.fleetfarm.com/mff/company/weeklyAd.jsp

moving to Holiday Discussion as this has nothing directly to do with BF...

GottaDeal.com has profiles on most of the major social networking sites. Here is the info you need to follow, befriend, subscribe or become a fan of us on all of these sites. We definitely encourage you to use your own social networking contacts to help spread the word about the site. We greatly appreciate it! Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/gottadeal Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/gottadeal MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/gottadeal YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/gottadeal We'll be using these platforms for contests and exclusive news, so it's definitely in your best interest to stay connected on these services in addition to checking the site every day.

Here is another site I added last year's design to. You can order them in black, and they are 2-sided like the originals: http://gottadeal.spreadshirt.com

I haven't either. A reporter contacted me this week wondering where all the BF-like deals were this weekend, lol. Guess there was nothing to this story.

To keep things running smoothly this year, please follow these rules specifically for the Black Friday message boards: - Please search before posting a new thread to avoid reposting topics that have already been posted. Moderators will either close, delete or merge reposted threads with the original topic to avoid having multiple discussions on the same subject. - Please post new threads in the appropriate forum. If the thread is about a specific store, post it in the appropriate subforum for that store. If it is a general Black Friday topic, post it in General Discussion. If your topic is not related at all to Black Friday directly, it does not belong in the BF forums and will likely be moved or deleted. - Avoid trolling or posting comments designed to get others upset. The other general forum rules (http://forums.gottadeal.com/showthread.php?t=53669) apply to these Black Friday message boards as well, so please be courteous to your fellow members. If you see something that should be looked at by a mod or admin, report the post. - Do not post links to other competing Black Friday sites. If you see an ad posted elsewhere, rather than posting a link to it on the forum, contact me via private message and we'll get that ad posted on the site as soon as possible. Many other Black Friday sites are censored here because they have spammed us in the past and do not deserve free advertising. - If you have a Black Friday ad, please contact us either through the forum or through the Black Friday site to get that ad information to us. Do not directly post it on the forum before contacting us. We'll get it posted on the site as soon as we can (and can reward you for your help). - No self promotion. This is in the general forum rules but it bears repeating. This site gets extremely busy during this time of year and it becomes a target for spammers looking to piggyback on the success of the site. Posts or signatures advertising your site, business, blog, iPhone app, whatever will be deleted immediately and will likely lead to your banning. If you want to pay for advertising on the site, contact us through the BF site. - Do not post links to sites that host ads that we were forced to take down. Do not ask others to PM you to get an ad that we were forced to take down. Do not advertise that you have ads that were taken down in your signature. Everyone knows how to use Google - any leaked ad can likely easily be found - no need to put this site in legal jeopardy by posting these things.

I vow to not get too upset when 4 new ads get leaked the same night and I'm up until 4am posting them all

The forum shows this info for your last post: The IP Address is: 207.200.116.73 The host name is: cache-ntc-ab09.proxy.aol.com So it's definitely going through AOL.

Good to see so many members making their first posts in this thread. Keep it up!

this is the 2-sided shirt: http://www.cafepress.com/bfgottadeal.411062352 but like i said, they only let you have 2-sided shirts in white. if anyone knows a site that does on-demand printing like this and allows for 2-sided printing on dark colored shirts, send me a PM.

Only the first non-"value" white one has 2 sided printing. Cafepress doesn't allow for 2-sided printing on the "value" or dark-colored shirts. That's why I'm looking into other companies so we can hopefully get a 2-sided black version similar to last year.

Winners Chosen! See here: http://forums.gottadeal.com/showpost.php?p=1616458&postcount=410 HOW TO WIN: I'm going to give away 5 of these GottaDeal.com Black Friday Survival Kits right away. To be eligible to win, reply to this thread and share one of your past Black Friday experiences. It can be something crazy that happened, a particularly good or bad experience at a store, anything you'd like. If you've never experienced Black Friday before, then reply to this thread letting us know why you are excited for this year. Entries will be accepted until 10pm ET on Sunday, October 11th. At that point we'll randomly select 5 winners from all eligible entries and they will each win a survival kit! LURKERS: if you haven't registered yet for the forum, this is a perfect opportunity to jump in and get your feet wet. Registering will also get rid of those annoying ads all over the forum as well, so it's a win-win for you. Just click here to register - it's fast, easy and free! Good luck to all!

HPB, in addition to sending us their ad early, is sending us a gift card and tote bag to give away on the site, so look for that giveaway in the coming weeks

We are not going to be giving away Black Friday-specific shirts this year. I ordered a few hundred new GottaDeal.com shirts that we'll be giving away instead. More on that very soon... However I set up a store through CafePress with shirts using the design from last year's BF shirts for anyone who wants to buy them. I priced them the lowest possible price (we're not making any $ on them), but you'll have to get them through CafePress: http://www.cafepress.com/bfgottadeal I also might come up with a new design in the next few weeks and have those sold through one of these types of sites as well. I would have liked to order them and sell them myself, but it just was too much work last year during an already extremely busy time.

Looks like you are using AOL, which changes your IP address constantly, so maybe someone who had used that IP address in the past was banned. If you can figure out what IP address you are using when you get the 'banned' message, we can unblock that IP.

Black Friday Bargains Beckon http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/2009/11/black_friday_bargains_beckon.html

i dont remember anyone predicting HPB, let alone picking the correct date.

this ad is very similar to what they did last year, so i wouldn't read too much into it. they sent the ad direct to us again, so i am going to try and get them to give us some GCs or swag to give away too :) but at least we finally have an ad, lol

http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/BlackFridaySales/Store/HalfPriceBooks

an added "feature" of the netbook we're giving away is with a little work, it can run mac os x on it: http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2008/10/13519/

Keep in mind that they aren't being as mean as other stores - they say in the message they will provide us with the ad in early November once it is finalized. That is still weeks before BF. They did this last year as well.

Got this today:

GottaDeal.com Holiday Giveaway 2009! POST DEALS & WIN GREAT PRIZES! Introducing the GottaDeal.com Holiday Giveaway 2009! We're giving away hundreds of dollars in prizes and gift cards and all you have to do to be eligible to win is to post deals here on the forum - it's that easy! Over the next couple of months, we are going to award giveaway entries to forum members who post qualifying* deals in the Online Hot Deals forum. You can earn a maximum of 5 entries per day - one for each qualifying* deal you post. See below for details about what makes a qualifying deal. At the end of the contest period, we will randomly select ten winners who will receive the following prizes: 1st Winner: Dell Inspiron 910 netbook computer 2nd Winner: Nintendo Wii video game system 3rd Winner: $150 gift card to the store of your choice 4th Winner: $100 gift card to the store of your choice 5th - 10th Winners: $50 gift card to the store of your choice Prizes will be awarded based on the order they are selected - the first winner selected wins the netbook, the second winner wins the Wii, etc... there is no choice of prizes. We will also be randomly giving away GottaDeal.com merchandise including t-shirts, reusable grocery bags, pens and more to those of you who post deals during the contest. OFFICIAL RULES Promotion period begins on October 5, 2009 at 12:00am Eastern Time and ends on December 13, 2009 at 11:59pm Eastern Time. All registered GottaDeal.com forum members are eligible to participate in this promotion, including temporary and permanent moderators. Members found to have created multiple forum accounts for the purposes of accumulating additional entries will be disqualified. You will receive one drawing entry for each qualifying* deal thread posted in the Online Hot Deals forum during the contest period. List of partner stores may change during the contest. Deals will count if the store is on the list when the deal is posted.Only your first five qualifying* deal threads will earn you entries each day. Each daily period starts at 12:00am and ends at 11:59pm Eastern Time. Additional entries earned during previous contests will also count for this holiday giveaway drawing.Prize winners will be randomly selected no later than December 15, 2009 from all entries earned during the promotion period. Limit one prize per forum member. Once someone has been chosen as a winner, their remaining entries will be removed from the drawing.Winners will be contacted via private message and/or e-mail to claim their prize. If a prize is not claimed within 14 days, it will be forfeited. QUALIFYING DEALS In order for a deal thread to qualify for an entry for this promotion, it must satisfy ALL of the following criteria: 1. The thread's title must include the name of the retailer the deal is for. 2. The post must contain a link, even if it's just a link to the retailer's home page. 3. The deal must be from one of our partner retailers (see complete list here). 4. The deal must must be unique and not be a repost of a recently posted deal. We reserve the right to disqualify any deal for any reason. Besides these mandatory criteria, we also ask that you be as descriptive as possible in your thread title. Where possible, include an image in your post. If there is a specific method to get the deal, provide step-by-step instructions. If a coupon code is needed, be sure to include the code in your post. Please do not directly copy and paste deals from other sites - you may "borrow" the deal, but type the title and post in your own words. Directly copied posts may be disqualified. HELPFUL HINTS Please search before posting a deal. Re-posted deals will be deleted.Make sure your deal is a legit deal and not just "filler" to earn an entry.Check the list of partner retailers - some "big" stores are not eligible.List of qualifying retailers may change at any time - keep checking back.Please take the time to read this entire post - it will save you time.Combine deals if possible. Similar deals from same store may be merged.Avoid using ALL CAPS in your posts and include the $ when posting prices. *** CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE QUALIFYING PARTNER RETAILERS ***

Our winners are: elite2058 brandibug DramaQueenLucy vsa3janes aprncess angelic680 Congrats, and look for the next giveaway shortly...