Brad

usually it's electronics. most of the other items tend to be on sale for very similar prices weeks before and after BF. but you can only get those loss-leader electronics items on BF.

Exactly. The two things are different. Ads (such as Google Adsense) add nothing to a site and exist only to make $ for the site owner. Having affiliate links for some items is a transparent way to also make $ while not annoying visitors and taking up valuable screen real estate with traditional ads. The same thing applies to the main GD site.

Amazon has their traditional "Friday Sale" but expands it a little on BF. They also typically have most of the Toys R Us BF sale items.

they have regular google adsense ads. because their site is BF related and so are our ads, there is a match made by google and the ad is shown.

you can't but i can :) i'll PM you and let you know. if anyone else wants to refer people (and earn GottaPoints for each referral), your personal referral link can be found on your user control panel home page: http://forums.gottadeal.com/usercp.php

The ads are the same (or will be once they start coming out). There are just multiple sites that have them and each site has different features. We've been doing this for many years now and there are new sites popping up each year that try to do the same thing. The old "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" saying applies here. Most of them do it to try and make money from ads (you clicking on the ad at the other site proves that). We don't need ads (in fact we pay to have ads shown elsewhere instead :) ) We think that we are simply the best site as we have this busy forum, plus many great features on the main BF site such as the new-ad notifications, the personalized shopping list, etc...

Hiding a hard drive in an oven? What sick person does that?

We know there are a lot of you lurkers out there (and we welcome you to GottaDeal.com :) ), so we thought we'd let you have a sneak peek at what you're missing by not registering. You can see the thread titles here in the BF forum, but in order to view the threads you have to REGISTER for a forum account. Registering is very quick, simple and free. Once you are registered, you can: * access the Black Friday 2005 message board * access the Black Friday 2004 archived board * save your personalized shopping list on the main site * earn GottaPoints to redeem for prizes and contest entries * be eligible for other prizes only for forum members

Humane Society choice added

I'll make one of those in a few days. For now you can just check the Store and see how many entries have been bought and multiply that by $0.10. We're currently at $2.00 but there is a loooooong time to go.

Praveen, check out this deal from Dell: http://www.gottadeal.com/DirectDeal/12326

Ours comes in the Thursday paper. Although some stores like WalMart tend to mail them out a few days before that.

I think they will be better. Last year, for example, WalMart didn't really go all out with their BF sale and it really hurt their sales for November. From a news article about BF last year: "More than a month ago, Wal-Mart announced that it would not succumb to the kind of "price-beater" and "early-bird" specials its competitors traditionally run the day after Thanksgiving, and Williams dismissed that approach again yesterday, labeling such limited-time, limited-quantity offers "gimmicks" and "loss leaders." "For November, Wal-Mart recorded only a 0.7 percent sales increase among stores open at least a year, compared with its own projections of a 2 percent to 4 percent increase." So I don't think they'll want to make the same mistake again.

Also just a note to let you know that we just bumped up the number of GottaPoints you receive for new threads posted here in the BF forum. Hopefully that will be another incentive to get the discussion going while we wait for the ads. So get posting and you could win one of the 10 $20 gift cards we're giving away!

Which would you suggest? I'd rather add one so the two don't split the vote (unless you'd rather have both - doesn't really matter to me)

uh, when do the ads come out? (had to be the first one)

In case anyone needs them, here are our lists from the last 2 years: http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/2003.txt http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/2004.txt These are also useful in determining if any new rumored ads this year are legit or just copies of last year's.

While we wait for the first ads... Does anyone have any good Black Friday "war stories" from previous years?

Welcome to the site hhockman :) Glad you found us as well

Like last year we're going to have thousands of new visitors on the forum because of the Black Friday site, and we want to welcome all of you newcomers, as well as those of you who haven't been back since last Black Friday (where did you go? LOL) New this year on the forum is our GottaPoints system. We launched this in mid-September and it has proved to be very popular. In a nutshell, you earn GottaPoints by doing various things on the forum (posting, referring new members, and other things). You can spend your GottaPoints on prizes, contest entries and more in the GottaPoints Store. For a more complete description of GottaPoints, including exactly what you earn points for, please see this thread. You can see your current total in the GottaPoints Store, in your User Control Panel or on your User Profile page. Through the end of the year, we have 2 big giveaways which will use these GottaPoints. First is the Holiday Gift Card Giveaway in which we will be giving away a $20 gift card every week for 10 weeks. You can win one or more of these gift cards by earning GottaPoints and buying entries into each drawing in the store. Second, we have the "Points for Charity" Giveaway in which you can not only win a great prize, but for each entry you buy, we'll donate ten cents to charity. This contest runs through the end of the year or when all 2,000 entries are redeemed, whichever comes first. Besides spending your GottaPoints, you can also transfer them to your fellow forum members - also via the GottaPoints Store. If someone helps you out or posts something you find especially useful, consider sending them some points as a token of your appreciation. Finally, the admins (RossMAN and myself) can give you bonus GottaPoints for any reason. If we see you being helpful on the forum, we'll give you some points. If you find a really hot deal and post it, we'll give you some points. If you post a link to our site somewhere else (such as in your sig on another forum) and we see it or you tell us about it, we'll give you some points. Hopefully this answers some of your questions about the GottaPoints system, and now that you are a registered member (because you wouldn't see this if you weren't) you can immediately start posting and earning GottaPoints.

Welcome back Snoodles :)

Here is the poll we will use to determine the charities that will split the donations from the "Points for Charity" giveaway. You can vote for more than one charity, so if there are a couple that you would like to vote for, feel free. Keep in mind that you can only vote once, so make sure you select all the charities you wish to the first time. If you vote and later wish to add a vote, send me or RossMAN a PM and we'll add the vote manually. The poll will remain open until the end of November at which point the chosen charities will be announced. The charites included are all the charities that were not selected during the last giveaway, as well as a few other suggested by our members. If you'd like to suggest another charity, send me a PM by 10/7. After that the list will be closed.

We have just re-opened the BF forum :) If you can read this then you are a registered, logged-in member of the forum (as this BF forum is closed to lurkers once again this year). Have fun - less than 2 months to go

Last year we got a lot of the same questions popping up here in the Black Friday forum, so we thought we'd try to answer some of them now so we don't have 492 posts asking the same thing What is Black Friday? Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving when most retailers have their biggest sales of the year. For a complete history of Black Friday, see here. Where are the sale ads? The sale ads that we have will appear on the main Black Friday @ GottaDeal web site available at http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com When do the rumored ads start appearing? We expect the first rumored ads to appear on the site in late October or early November. If you or someone you know has access to the ads early, please contact us. If you can give us an exclusive look at the ad early, there is a good chance you'll be rewarded for your help :) When do the ads come in the newspaper? Traditionally, the actual printed ads come with your newspaper on Thanksgiving Day, however in some areas they will be in the paper on Wednesday or on Black Friday itself. Check with your local newspaper if you need to know the exact date. Some retailers such as WalMart occasionally distribute their ads sooner. Do retailers allow price matching or returning & rebuying for BF items? There is no set answer for this. Each retailer makes their own decisions and policies, and those can even change from year to year. Your best bet is to contact the retailer directly to get their price matching policy. Some stores that allow it during the year won't allow it during BF. Different stores in different areas might have different policies as well. Why is this forum for registered members only? We want to encourage as much participation on not only this Black Friday forum, but all of our other forums. Now that you are registered we invite you to post anywhere you'd like on the various forums. You can earn GottaPoints which can get you prizes and contest entries as well. We'll have a special private forum for scanned ads and other exclusives only for active members who have been posting, so be sure you have made a few posts if you want access to that information when the time comes. How can I help support the site? We're glad you asked :) We don't want your money, we don't accept donations, we don't even have any annoying ads on the site. If you appreciate what we are doing with the BF site, the best thing you can do is just spread the word. Tell your family, friends and co-workers about it, post a link on other sites (without spamming of course ) - anything to let others know about the site. We'll be very grateful and if we see you doing it we'll give you some GottaPoints as well :) What do some of the abbreviations I see on the site mean? BF = Black Friday GD = GottaDeal AR = After Rebate MIR = Mail-in Rebate BB = Best Buy CC = Circuit City TRU = Toys R Us OP = Original Poster (the person who started a thread) FAR = Free After Rebate PM = Price Match or Private Message YMMV = Your Mileage May Varry B&M = Brick and Mortar your local store What about price matching and layaway? In the vast majority of cases, each store will set it's own policy regarding pricematching and layaway as it relates to BF. Many times the stores' policies change year to year, so posting a new thread will not likely get you a confirmed answer. Therefore we suggest you contact your individual store to see what their policy will be. When will 's BF ad come out? We have no idea when each ad will be leaked/released. Rest assured, as soon as it's available we'll post it and you'll know about it, so please do not create these threads asking us as we don't know. How do I use the search function to find something? To perform a generic search, just click the "Search" link in the top blue navigation bar and enter your query. If you want to do a more advanced search (such as searching only titles, only in certain forums, etc..., click the Advanced Search link under the search box, or just click here: SEARCH and perform your search from that page. Can I get these deals online? Again, this varies on a store-by-store, and item-by-item basis. There is no way to know when or if a particular item will be available online at the BF price. However, if you add items to your Shopping List on the site, you'll get an e-mail alert when any of your items become available online at the BF price. We will also have a big page listing every single item we find that is available at the BF price. We will make sure you are aware of this, so as long as you keep coming back to the site, you won't miss anything. Many of the items become available online Thanksgiving Day. Can you tell me more about a certain item? If we don't have the scanned ad posted and the item is not linked to the store's web site on the BF site, some good places to search for info are Google, PriceGrabber, and Amazon.com. My post/thread appears to be deleted - what happened? With all the posts, we are getting a lot of reposts and threads with the same topic. In most cases, we'll either close the thread and include a link to the older thread on the topic, or we will merge the thread with the existing one. We have master threads for many of the popular products such as laptops and TVs, so keep discussion of those items in those threads. New threads created about those items will likely be merged. Any other questions? If you have any other questions about Black Friday in general, feel free to post a new thread AFTER you have searched to make sure it has not been covered already. However, if you are going to post a new thread with a question, be sure to include a detailed thread title. Do not post a thread with the title "Question" or "Help Me". If you have questions, comments or suggestions about the site, send a private message to Brad or RossMAN, or use the contact form on the BF site and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Last Updated: 11/11/05

No there is nothing to tell whether someone has quoted you. I agree that the icons look very similar, but the threads you have posted on do have blue dots on the envelope which makes them easy to see. As for distinguishing between old and new threads, the fact that the titles are bold (for new threads) also help.