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Cyber Monday Doesn't Exist

xsspd2004 writes "Despite a huge amount of hype, the Monday after Thanksgiving is historically only the 12th-biggest online shopping day of the year. Do a Google search on "Cyber Monday," and you get as many as 779,000 results. Not a bad haul for a term that was created just a week and a half ago."

247 comments

  1. Uh by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If it was created only a week ago, I somehow doubt that google has spidered and indexed ~800k sites/pages containing such phrase, in that time period.

    --

    "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    1. Re:Uh by myspys · · Score: 4, Informative

      looking at google now, it's up to 1.8m

      look at the results though, they are from cnn, yahoo, cnet etc etc
      all big sites, and as you can probably guess, google crawls these sites a few times every day

      so google crawling and indexing 1.8m pages in a week isn't impossible at all

    2. Re:Uh by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, we have the primary news sites, then we have the secondary news sites, then we have news blogs (like this one), then every fricking blog and message board, then all the spam-blogs...I googled it just a second ago and got 2,060,000 hits. So if it can jump from 800k at the time of submission, to 2,060,000 hopefully not too much later, I think you may be underestimating how many people can talk abotu nothing, and how fast google can make that meaningless blather available to the world.

      Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go google this post.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
    3. Re:Uh by aug24 · · Score: 1
      He's an idiot. A search for "cyber monday" which only finds the two words together, not co-incidentally in the same page, finds only about 1,020,000. Still, more than I would have expected.

      J.

      --
      You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
    4. Re:Uh by Motherfucking+Shit · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you're doubting the freshness of the term, try searching in Google Groups instead. A usenet search can often give you a better picture of how a term or phrase evolved through culture.

      "Black Friday" - 11,000 results dating back to at least 1993.

      "Cyber Monday" - 20 results, all but one were indeed posted within the past week. The other one is in Russian, and doesn't actually appear to contain the term.

      So, if there was such a thing as "Cyber Monday" prior to this Thanksgiving, nobody seemed to know about it, and they sure as heck weren't discussing it.

      --
      "BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
    5. Re:Uh by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 1

      Wow, that's really interesting. Why does Google.uk have half as many results as Google.us? Either they are completely separate databases, or one updates the other on some schedule so the data stays linked. Iiiiiinteresting.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
    6. Re:Uh by GoodNicsTken · · Score: 1

      Ether I have supernatatural powers or it's a really slow news day.

      Cyper Tuesday didn't exist until 20 seconds ago when I typed it into Google and I got back 3,390,000 hits.

      Now if only I could use my powers to eliminate dupes from Slashdot. Nah, I'll stick with useing them to get girls.

    7. Re:Uh by gummih · · Score: 1, Funny

      In other news, Google searches for the term "Cyber Monday" just skyrocketet. Analysts are saying "we told you so, slashdot it and they will come"

    8. Re:Uh by WebCrapper · · Score: 4, Informative

      It all depends on how you search...

      Without quotation marks I get 5.2M results. With marks, I get 706k and the top 100 results (ok, so I scanned the top 100) are all news sites printing or reprinting stories.

      I have to agree here. It appears that someone coined the term and something happened. I'd love to see the historical data off some of the larger E-tailers to see if the term increased sales. If so, I'm predicting that retailers will start naming different days in the year to try to get more sales.

      BTW, in case no one knew this Black Friday is historically a day when something bad happens.

      Oh - and it looks like "Cyber Monday" is now on Wikipedia as well. Oddly enough, its pending deletion...

      The term Cyber Monday is a fairly recent term which refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Similar to Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year when retail stores often offer great deals, "Cyber Monday" has in recent years been a busy day for online retailers, and one in which online stores offer similarly low prices.
      [edit]

      Origin of term

      The term "Cyber Monday" is a neologism invented by the National Retail Federation, and was never in common use within the ecommerce community. According to shop.org, Scott Silverman, the Executive Director of the company, coined the term during a meeting in August or September 2005 to describe an emerging trend first noticed on the Monday after Thanksgiving, 2004.

    9. Re:Uh by nicklott · · Score: 1
      It's fairly irrelevant anyway, as after you go past page 9 of the results you get: "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 409 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included."

      So who's to say that google really have 800k results? Google? they're not very objective. Maybe they just make numbers up to make their searched look good? I wouldn't put it past them, abuse of power is becoming a Google speciality.

    10. Re:Uh by akadruid · · Score: 2, Informative

      Now at 6,670,000 on Google... where can I find a nice bit of Javascript to show a pretty counter, alongside my 'terror level guage', my 'no. of war dead in Iraq/$billion defense budget graph'.

      Mind you, http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&wo rd1=cyber+monday&word2=orange+wednesday">Orange Wednesday is still beating Cyber Monday on GoogleFight

      --
      "Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
    11. Re:Uh by Motherfucking+Shit · · Score: 1
      I'm in the tiny minority of people who actually budget their personal finances like a corporation.
      In other words, you pretend you're earning a lot more than you really are, you spend money as if this were true, then when the shit's about to hit the fan, you spend your remaining capital on buying politicians?

      Why didn't I think of that!
      --
      "BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
    12. Re:Uh by omahajim · · Score: 1
      According to shop.org, Scott Silverman, the Executive Director of the company, coined the term during a meeting in August or September 2005 to describe an emerging trend first noticed on the Monday after Thanksgiving, 2004.

      Does essentially one day worth of data (monday after thanksgiving online shopping numbers from 2004) qualify as an emerging trend? Sounds like Scotty just wanted some free advertising this year.

    13. Re:Uh by nelsonal · · Score: 1

      Black friday in retail got its name because it was traditionally the day retailers moved "into the black" which means moved from the loss column to the profit column for the year.

      --
      Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
    14. Re:Uh by the+argonaut · · Score: 1

      I'm assuming you're attempting to be funny and failing it badly, because I really can't believe that you're that stupid. The fact that the trend was first NOTICED on the Monday after Thanksgiving 2004 does not necessarily imply that he only used the sales data from that day, it only states that that was the sales season when the "trend" first became noticeable.

      That being said, I think it's a bullshit term being used to generate buzz and higher sales of cheap plastic crap.

      --
      fuck you.
    15. Re:Uh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sometimes companies pretend they're earning a lot less than they really do. For instance certain US auto makers have been accused of cooking the books to make it look like they are really bleeding money so they will get permission to stop paying on pensions that they owe previous employees. For every car GM sells they have to pay out something like one to two thousand dollars in pensions.

    16. Re:Uh by WebCrapper · · Score: 1

      Yes, but this isn't the original definition of it...

    17. Re:Uh by Sonri · · Score: 1

      BTW, in case no one knew this Black Friday is historically a day when something bad happens.

      For those of us who have worked in retail before fully commiting to our tech life (ie. college), Black Friday is a day with something bad happens. You live at your register while your store gets trashed so bad it takes three to four hours to put back to halfway clean. Customers complain about either a) there aren't enough cashiers or b) there aren't enough on the sales floor to help people. Black Friday is a day retail workers shudder at. Since leaving retail, I spend my Black Fridays at home, normally in front of the computer, not even leaving the house.

    18. Re:Uh by bobcat7677 · · Score: 1

      I'm a bit intrigued. Last year they called it "Blue Monday" in a reference to how hyperlinks typically show up in blue on a plain HTML page.

      But then I guess "Blue Monday" is too confusing given all the other things that it could refer to... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Monday

  2. Are you trying to say... by lbrandy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Are you trying to say that our media is creating and over-hyping something that doesn't necessarily exist to make for better headlines? Noooooo... not our media....

    1. Re:Are you trying to say... by FudRucker · · Score: 1

      probably a paid press release by walmart.com & amazon && a few other big online retail websites that stand to make big bucks off of this...

      --
      Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
    2. Re:Are you trying to say... by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 1

      Offtopic, but who the hell would buy from Walmart.com? Doesn't seem like their business model would translate well to the internet. What's the point of buying cut-rate crap when all the savings get eaten up by the shipping fees?

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
    3. Re:Are you trying to say... by mordors9 · · Score: 1

      Oh come now, it isn't the media's fault. They were simply misled by (insert Democrats or Republicans depending on your politics).

    4. Re:Are you trying to say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know, I actually hate Walmart in a tangible way. But last week I had to buy a specific GPS unit for my company. Tried the big outdoor stores (online and in person) and got headache after headache. As a last resort, I tried to buy it online from Walmart, but for some reason Walmart's credit card screen wasn't encrypted so I canceled out. Called customer service and not only did I get a real, well spoken, knowledgeable person in under a minute, but they pulled up exactly what I had tried to buy, took my card information, and got my unit shipped to me in a few days at a price significantly cheaper than the outdoor store would have charged me for in store pickup 2+ weeks later! They may be evil, but Walmart surprised the pants off of me for customer service. :)
      -Will

    5. Re:Are you trying to say... by bad+jerkface · · Score: 0

      What's the point of buying cut-rate crap when all the savings get eaten up by the shipping fees?

      With gas at about $3.00/gallon, I refuse to drive. Hell! I stopped driving when gas was $2.00/gallon. To answer your question, I have no problems letting FedEx pay for the gas.

      --
      It's a hand twinkler, you dumbass! And I got a bag of whoopass for you!
    6. Re:Are you trying to say... by poor_boi · · Score: 1

      The form itself doesn't need to be encrypted, just the action="" target behind it. But I guess Wamlart shouldn't expect people to know that. :(

    7. Re:Are you trying to say... by MCraigW · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Walmart's credit card screen wasn't encrypted so I canceled out. Called customer service and not only did I get a real, well spoken, knowledgeable person in under a minute, but they pulled up exactly what I had tried to buy, took my card information, and got my unit shipped

      Yeah, that knowledgable person just entered your card information in the same form that you wouldn't use...

    8. Re:Are you trying to say... by duffbeer703 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Even more ironic was that with the online fraud protection provided by credit cards, he would have zero liability for any misuse of his card due to the unencrypted credit card screen. (Assuming that you believe that Walmart.com doesn't use SSL)

      If that call center agent used that same page or stole the number, the online fraud stuff doesn't kick in and you're liable for the first $50.

      --
      Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
    9. Re:Are you trying to say... by Ryan+Amos · · Score: 1

      Probably more likely is that the form target is https, just not the page the form comes from. This would be fine, and is smart design, as SSL connections eat about 10 times more resources than http connections on a large e-commerce site. As long as their site doesn't store credit card numbers on your account this is a perfectly safe way to do things.

    10. Re:Are you trying to say... by ortholattice · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Probably more likely is that the form target is https, just not the page the form comes from. This would be fine, and is smart design

      How am I supposed to know that the form target is https? Am I supposed to analyze the page source code before I click "buy" with my credit card number? Your browser might warn you, and give you a chance to opt-out, if a form submission leaves https mode, but the other way around you can only know, practically speaking, after it's too late.

      Of course I could set the browser to warn about all non-encrypted submissions (as some do until by default you turn it off). But that would be extremely annoying for ordinary non-senstive information submission, like posting to a forum, so most people turn it off, a quite reasonable thing to do once you're aware of that.

      Sorry, this would not get my vote as a "smart design". My conservative assumption is that submission from a non-encrypted page will be non-encrypted unless I have good evidence otherwise.

    11. Re:Are you trying to say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > but who the hell would buy from Walmart.com

      good question. Another good question is why would the korean maufacturer of MobiBlu DAH-1500i give Walmart the exclusive right to distribute their most successful mp3 player in the US? Aparently the nifty player accounts for 75% of their entire revenue history. But had the not chose Walmart, it may have been bigger. After all, did anyone even hear of Walmart promoting it?

    12. Re:Are you trying to say... by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 1

      How am I supposed to know that the form target is https? Am I supposed to analyze the page source code before I click "buy" with my credit card number? Your browser might warn you, and give you a chance to opt-out, if a form submission leaves https mode, but the other way around you can only know, practically speaking, after it's too late.

      If you use Mozilla/Firefox, the Target Alert extension will show you. Yes, this doesn't fix the general case, but you can fix yourself

    13. Re:Are you trying to say... by FudRucker · · Score: 1

      exactly, i bought items from websites and the forum was not encrypted but as soon and you click that enter button just look for that yellow address bar in firefox (lock icon in the statusbar for mozilla) showing the transmission of data is encrypted

      --
      Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
    14. Re:Are you trying to say... by StormCrow · · Score: 1

      Or you could just submit the form without your credit card info the first time to see where it goes (assuming of course that the form doesn't have javascript code to prevent that).

    15. Re:Are you trying to say... by JourneymanMereel · · Score: 1

      I've heard of this attitude before... and with bank account numbers/passwords at that!!

      http://service1fcu.com/cuathome.php

      --
      Life has many choices. Eternity has two. What's yours?
    16. Re:Are you trying to say... by Shakrai · · Score: 1

      How am I supposed to know that the form target is https? Am I supposed to analyze the page source code before I click "buy" with my credit card number? Your browser might warn you, and give you a chance to opt-out, if a form submission leaves https mode, but the other way around you can only know, practically speaking, after it's too late.

      Am I the only one who wouldn't have cared even if the form wasn't https? Do you really think that one packet containing your credit card number (out of millions going to Wal Mart and trillions on the backbone links) is going to be intercepted in route? And even if it was -- so what? Even if somebody charges stuff you aren't on the hook for it -- as long as you report it promptly when you get your statement.

      If you are that paranoid then how the hell could you read out your credit card number over the phone? At least tell me you didn't use a cordless phone.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    17. Re:Are you trying to say... by JimBobJoe · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that knowledgable person just entered your card information in the same form that you wouldn't use...

      Having worked for several retail/online call centers (including one which was a cluster of outsourced companies) I can vouch that usually a CSR is placing orders on a modified website that runs off the same server.

      In one situation, one of the call centers had telecommuting employees which just placed orders on the public website. Anything more complex than placing an order was transferred to a CSR located in the call center.

      The risk of course raises dramatically when you call in your order--after all, now you're giving a real live human being a credit card number and all the other information to use it maliciously.

    18. Re:Are you trying to say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I did, it's been advertised in several magazines and online, including here. I even bought one, it's quite nifty too.

    19. Re:Are you trying to say... by helfire57 · · Score: 1

      Actually, they are shipping for $0.97. Crazy. I know its Wal-Mart but they MUST be losing money. Or is their scale SO big that their average shipping cost is less than $0.97?

    20. Re:Are you trying to say... by Fujisawa+Sensei · · Score: 1

      If the call center agent did use your credit card, Walmart could be held liable for considerably more than $50. Even the the agent wasn't an employee of Walmart, they were still authorized to act on Walmart's behalf.

      --
      If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
    21. Re:Are you trying to say... by duffbeer703 · · Score: 1

      A merchant probably wouldn't be liable for any damages, unless they were negligent. If proper safeguards are in place, companies aren't held liable for the individual criminal acts of employees.

      The $50 is a statutory liability that federal law provides to protect consumers and the credit card banks. Credit card companies are forced to eat any liability for fraud over $50, provided that the consumer reports the fraud within 90 days. Most credit card issuers voluntarily offer zero fraud-liability.

      That limited liability makes it silly for consumers to sue merchants for employee fraud...

      --
      Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
    22. Re:Are you trying to say... by nahdude812 · · Score: 1

      Even though you're not financially liable, you do have a fair amount of headache associated with this. For example, when I lost my credit card and had it deactivated (found later that day, but not before I deactivated it), I had to update all the subscription services which automatically bill against it. In all, the process was several hours, time which one could save themselves if they simply only shop with sites that provide https support. I was without a card to do things like purchase gasoline or groceries, and I had no mac card to get cash from an ATM since my mac and credit card (debit card actually) were the same.

      What if you discover the fraud while on vacation, and your card is already maxed out? You won't be able to get a replacement card until you arrive home, and your vacation could be pretty effectively ruined (including whatever you were trying to pay for when you discovered the fraud, eg, the expensive dinner you just ate, or the hotel room you were trying to pay for).

      Also, https does more than provide encryption. It provides identification confirmation. You know with a fair level of certainty that when dealing with an https site, that the owner of the site is who they are claiming to be, because the browser checks the domain name against the certificate. You know that someone hasn't used arp poisoning, a corrupted hosts file, or various other means of hijacking domains for a small set of users in order to intercept your credit card information.

      That said, the encryption itself is a worthwhile reason to use https for sensitive information. How many people have unsecured wireless access points? Anyone in range can listen to every communication they do on their network. People who use certain cable connections are able to be spied on by anyone else on the same loop as them, if that person is sufficiently savvy. Then there's the simple case of nefarious or disgruntled network admins at your ISP, their ISP, their ISP, etc, right down to the retailer itself, for whom there could be IT workers who don't have database access, but could sniff the network. There's a lot of people with their thumbs on the communication line here, so there's a lot of potential for abuse. Even if 99.9% of the time none of these people would do so, the potential is still there and is highly mitigated with https.

      Further, there have been a few cases where credit card information has been used to retrieve even more sensitive information, such as might be sufficient to commit identity fraud. In all, my point is that the risks posed are greater than simply the financial risks which credit card companies help to mitigate.

    23. Re:Are you trying to say... by David+Rolfe · · Score: 1
      Your arguments against identity theft and man in the middle attacks are all well and good... but you would gain more security by compartmentalizing your risk. That is, getting one card and using it for the net, getting one card and using it for vacation. Using your debit card for everything is a pretty big target (because you have to trust everyone that touches it and by extension, every system they slide it through, and by extension every person that has physical access to each of those systems; e.g., is their [Windows] Point-of-Sale software secure; is the POS terminal hardened or tamper proofed?).

      Take what Bruce says:
      Chaos is hard to create, even on the Internet.

      Here's an example. Go to Amazon.com. Buy a book without using SSL. Watch the total lack of chaos.


      http://www.google.com/search?q=chaos+is+hard+to+cr eate%2C+even+on+the+internet

      Also of interest are Schneier's thoughts on identity theft and credit card fraud and their 'solutions'.
      --
      Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
  3. greeting card strategem by know1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    this will be just like when they tried to add grandma and grandadas days to mothers and fathers days, just another excuse to try and drum up more profit. seems a bit pointless in this case though, they are both wrong and it's a growth business anyway. perhaps marketing were exceptionally bored. or maybe it was the work experience guy

    1. Re:greeting card strategem by Donut2099 · · Score: 1

      Are you saying that I bought all these Cyber-Monday cards for nothing? I got a great deal on them too, at an after-Cyber-Monday blowout sale :(

    2. Re:greeting card strategem by RichardX · · Score: 1

      Aww, cheer up. I'll send you an "I'm sorry you bought Cyber-Monday cards and then Cyber-Monday turned out to be a non-event leaving you with redundant cards" card. They have a section for those right next to "Congratulations Third-Cousin-Twice-Removed! you found the TV remote you thought you'd lost!" cards.

      --
      Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
  4. So... Google search is now indicative of sales? by Wisgary · · Score: 0

    Huh?

    1. Re:So... Google search is now indicative of sales? by Noog · · Score: 1

      Didn't you get the memo?

  5. It's twoo, it's twoo! by glomph · · Score: 4, Funny

    On CyberMonday, my whole family stands in line for hours to buy stuff on the Internet! It gets to fisticuffs and hair-pulling when it comes to grabbing the mouse and clicking on the 'Complete Purchase' button!

    1. Re:It's twoo, it's twoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your mother told me that she's ordering a shotgun to arrive in time for next years' Cyber Monday... Don't say I didn't tell you!

    2. Re:It's twoo, it's twoo! by EulerX07 · · Score: 0

      Fisticuffs? Did you just buy Dragon Quest VIII?

  6. non news by phase_9 · · Score: 1, Funny

    google.com "non news" Results 1 - 10 of about 271,000 for "non news". (0.24 seconds)

  7. Google index by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, most of the hits on the google search are from msg board posts that actually say "Wanna cyber, Monday?"

    1. Re:Google index by FreakyLefty · · Score: 2, Funny

      Eep. Only 2 results for "wanna cyber monday" on Google. Obviously Monday isn't the most popular time... still, curious, I checked the other days and Monday comes out on top. Seems people are just too impatient to plan these things. Pah, kids these days.

      --
      Strength through redundancy and over-design
    2. Re:Google index by StikyPad · · Score: 2, Funny

      Who's Monday?

    3. Re:Google index by netmasta · · Score: 1

      Friday's kid. Dum-dee-dum-dum.

  8. An alternative name... by ysegalov · · Score: 5, Funny

    From the article:
    They quickly discarded suggestions such as Black Monday (too much like Black Friday), Blue Monday (not very cheery), and Green Monday (too environmentalist), and settled on Cyber Monday.

    I would call it - 'November's fools day'.

    1. Re:An alternative name... by pipingguy · · Score: 1


      I was amused so much a few days ago while scanning headlines that I actually clicked one.

      According to one "news outlet", people were lining up before 5 AM at a store to get great bargains.

      That's just pathetic, and the only thing I can think of right now is what Homer said once he saw that the tree and the presents were gone: "Lisa, where did Christmas go?".

    2. Re:An alternative name... by blackmonday · · Score: 1

      "They quickly discarded suggestions such as Black Monday.."

      My band would have loved that choice! Finally we'd be part of a media frenzy!

    3. Re:An alternative name... by Gadgetfreak · · Score: 1

      It's too bad, really. 8 years ago, that name would have had nerds everywhere laughing. And secretly hoping.

      --
      "No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
    4. Re:An alternative name... by nelsonal · · Score: 1

      What's pathetic about differing marginal costs of time? You may argue that they should not give commercial gifts, but still celebrate Christmas in a more meaningful way. However, getting up early on Friday is just a trade of time for money either through outright payments or on purchases that will be made anyway.

      --
      Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
    5. Re:An alternative name... by pipingguy · · Score: 1


      Or maybe it's a media event fuelled by the "if I don't get it now..." Pavlov situation.

      Do you think the "thousands" of people worldwide that lined-up to get the first Xbox 360s were trading time for money?

    6. Re:An alternative name... by Fishstick · · Score: 1

      Well, I don't know if I'd go as far as 'pathetic', but I've always reacted to the 5am shopper thing.

      Stores advertise ridiculously low prices on a few items ($99 for a $700 flat screen tv), but only 6-11 am and only while suppies last. Sheeple start lining up at 5am to make sure they are into the store early enough to grab one of these. Of couse, a large percentage of shoppers don't get one of these bargains, but they are out there early jostling with each other and it makes good video for the 11 o'clock news.

      WalMart didn't do this last year and it hurt their numbers, so they followed suit with the other large retail chains. They advertised tvs and dvd players for pennies on the dollar. In the end, it's all about getting traffic through the door, getting people into a buying frenzy and selling Garth Brooks CD boxed sets.

      My reaction to this is that people are being manipulated and not necessarily getting much in exchange for coming out and standing in front of WalMart at 5am. On some level, I suppose, it seems pathetic that people are willing to be treated like cattle and are too willing to be driven by advertising ang the (empty) promise of tremendous savings.

      --

      There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
      Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.

    7. Re:An alternative name... by nelsonal · · Score: 1

      So say there is a 20% chance of "making" $100 (or a 2% chance of making $1000 for going out early on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I would say that is worth something near $20 for perhaps 2h of time. You and I might rather pay the full price at noon or the following weekend, but what I am wondering is why that should pose a problem for someone who values their 4-6am time at less than $10/hr?
      I'm in agreement that most of the effort and resources spent on presents is deadweight loss and everyone would be better off with a much more limited gift exchange, but if the presents will be bought anyway I don't see much difference between standing in line for 2 hrs and working an extra hr (or using an hour's pay) to buy the presents.

      --
      Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
    8. Re:An alternative name... by GileadGreene · · Score: 1

      Can I just mention that I hate the term 'cyber' when it's used as some kind of signifier that a term is related to computers or the 'net. Possibly more than I hate 'e'-whatever. I blame William Gibson for introducing this usage, and the US government for propagating it. I wish it would stop.

    9. Re:An alternative name... by StikyPad · · Score: 1

      I wonder if Cyber Mondays will be touch sensative like the Cyber Hands they talked about yesterday...

    10. Re:An alternative name... by Fishstick · · Score: 1

      well, yeah -- when you put it that way

      I like the clip they were showing on one of the news shows the other day. They were inside the store as the doors were opened and the crowd bustled in, elbowing past each other as they sought to get their hands on one of the special deals.

      I could almost hear the hoofbeats and strained mooing...

      --

      There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
      Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.

  9. umm Cyber? Monday by 0110011001110101 · · Score: 2, Funny

    DOH! Does this mean I missed the biggest day of the year to get online and talk dirty to women who are actually men pretending to be women pretending to like men who are pretending not to like little boys?

    --
    Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
    1. Re:umm Cyber? Monday by TPJ-Basin · · Score: 0

      Don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day today.

      --
      TPJ - Founder, The Amazon Basin
    2. Re:umm Cyber? Monday by LDoggg_ · · Score: 1

      You pay the bills for that? Does that cost money every time you're on, like for minutes on the phone?

      --

      "If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
    3. Re:umm Cyber? Monday by Lord+Kestrel · · Score: 1

      Worst. Movie. Ever.

  10. Talk about over-hyping... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    "windows vista" gives you about 15,600,000 results on google. And it's not even out yet!

  11. O rly? by parasonic · · Score: 5, Funny

    I somehow doubt that google has spidered and indexed ~800k sites/pages containing such phrase, in that time period.

    Somebody has a case of the cyber-Mondays!

    1. Re:O rly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I reckon you'd get your ass kicked saying that where I work.... (LOL)

    2. Re:O rly? by C++12 · · Score: 1

      Careful now...hey may quietly flip and burn your building down...

  12. Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by FirstNoel · · Score: 3, Funny

    The first Monday after Thanksgiving has always been and will always be Deer Slaying Day. Hell, we have off for work and school, just so we can go slay some of those fierce creatures.

    Sheesh...get it right.

    It's kind of like Snake Whacking day...only with deer.

    Watch out those antlers can be nasty!

    Sean D.

    --
    "Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
    1. Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by sczimme · · Score: 1


      The first Monday after Thanksgiving has always been and will always be Deer Slaying Day. Hell, we have off for work and school, just so we can go slay some of those fierce creatures.

      Don't be fooled, Timmy: if given a chance that deer would kill you and everyone you care about.

      It's kind of like Snake Whacking day...only with deer.

      At least that would be a fair fight:

      "Monday! MONDAY! MONDAY!! A knock-down, drag-out brawl between Homo Redneckien and a Deerus Pistofficus! It's antler vs whacking club in a fight to the death!"

      (Yes, I know we need to control the deer population. No, I don't think all hunters are rednecks. This was a pre-emptive "sshhh".)

      --
      I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
    2. Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by evilviper · · Score: 4, Funny
      Watch out those antlers can be nasty!

      My sister was once bitten by a moose.
      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    3. Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by (startx) · · Score: 1

      Damn straight. Even the St. Louis Police Department got in on Deer Slaying Day when one wondered into the remains of old Busch Stadium.

    4. Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      No really! She was carving her intials on the moose when...

    5. Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by MCraigW · · Score: 1
      The first Monday after Thanksgiving has always been and will always be Deer Slaying Day. Hell, we have off for work and school, just so we can go slay some of those fierce creatures.

      Gee, neither I, my wife, nor my children have that Monday (yesterday) off. Do I need to take up hunting to get that day off? I do like venison.

    6. Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by FirstNoel · · Score: 1, Funny


      Mind you, moose bites can be nasty.

      --
      "Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
    7. Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by Skater · · Score: 1

      Depends on where you live. When I was in high school (and elementary school) in rural Pennsylvania, we had Monday and Tuesday off after Thanksgiving for exactly this reason. I guess the thinking was that so many people would be absent they might as well cancel. I knew of factories that closed those days for the same reason.

    8. Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by maxume · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm okay with you being against hunting, but in the absence of natural predators, it is a good idea to control the deer population. If you drive down US 2 in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, you can see the problem without getting out of your car; there is no green on cedar below about 5 or 6 feet. The deer eat any and all of it they can reach. No new cedar is growing. For me, that's a problem. It isn't just cedar either. A few years back, the Michigan DNR was managing for license revenue rather than population control. The deer were eating god-damn everything. Bovine TB and CWD scares changed that policy in a jiffy, and things are getting better, but they still hammer the cedar pretty good.

      Not to mention the road hazards created by too large a herd.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    9. Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by drew · · Score: 1

      It's not really a holiday, but in some areas of the country (e.g. Wisconsin, where I grew up, and Minnesota) a lot of business and schools close down on the first day of hunting season because they know that the majority of their employees/students/teachers will take the day off anyway. I had a friend who went to University of Wisconsin, and while she never officially had opening day off, almost every year all of her classes that day were cancelled so the professor could get his deer.

      --
      If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
    10. Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One of my high school teachers had a brother who went deer hunting with a knife: is that close enough to club vs. antler? Basically, the hunter just kinda runs the deer down. This may sound really assinine as deer are so much faster than people, but apparantly people have much more endurance than deer and if their tracking skills are good enough, they will eventually catch up to a worn out deer.

      Could be a bogus story, but I still like it.

    11. Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by Skim123 · · Score: 1
      Watch out those antlers can be nasty!

      This guy's wife (well, now widow) would agree.

      --

      I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.

    12. Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by QSYSMAN · · Score: 1

      Your sister *might* be a redneck...

    13. Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Congratulations on completely missing the joke...

  13. And you only get... by lbmouse · · Score: 0

    ...2,920 results for a Google search on "Cyber Monkey". Something just isn't right here.

  14. No. by CyricZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Google search they performed has nothing to do with indicating the quantity of sales. They don't even claim that it does! They use the search more to show how quickly the new term "Cyber Monday" has spread.

    If you had bothered to read the article, you would have noticed that the sales data is based on non-Google research.

    --
    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
  15. Thanks slashdot, I just did a search for... by Wisgary · · Score: 2, Funny
    "Cyber monday" and came up with this:
    naked girl naked underage and nude boy nude boy teen pic nude boy... and tgp preteens very female nudist cyber monday real underground erotic ... lolitas gay art european porn clitoris story little lilamber sex polish ...
    Relevant!
    1. Re:Thanks slashdot, I just did a search for... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Relevant!

      Of course your search result is relavant. If you can't spot the obvious connection between 'cyber monday' and 'european porn clitoris story' you should not be participating in this discussion.

  16. Re:What's Thanksgiving??? by kmmatthews · · Score: 1

    The internet is international. Slashdot is not. I refer you to the FAQ: http://slashdot.org/faq/editorial.shtml#ed850.

    --
    feh. stuff.
  17. Online shoppping by HappyCakeOven · · Score: 1, Funny

    Personally, I stay home on cyber monday. The internet is too crowded and I hate waiting in the long lines at the checkout button.

    --
    It makes real cupcakes, with a 40 watt bulb, and there's icing packets....but the secret ingredient is love.
    1. Re:Online shoppping by yellowbkpk · · Score: 1

      Last year I saw on the news about people getting trampled on Cyber Monday, so I just stayed home (Slashdot, Fark, etc.).

  18. Strange... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1, Funny

    When I clicked on the CNN Money poll asking if you were shopping on Cyber Monday, the "No" was running at 85%. No wonder there was no internet slowdown when I was browsing the Amazon site at work. Alas, I didn't buy anything. Bad, consumer, bad!

  19. I'm sick of this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    And while we're beating down hype, "Good Friday" was only my ninth favourite friday of 2005.

    1. Re:I'm sick of this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The false advertising suits made them stop calling it "Best Friday" for just this reason. ninth out of fity two is, however, arguably a good standing.

  20. Love Day by farfisa69 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Marge: "Happy Love Day everyone!"
    Lisa: "Come on Mom! The stores just invented this holiday because they wanted to make money!"
    Homer: "Lisa don't you ruin another love day!"

    --
    Meat is murder, I eat chicken.
  21. For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by pla · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Black Friday exists because physical shopping at a Brick-n'-Mortar has a number of very real constraints on when it can occur - You need the store open and staffed; You need to have free time (ie, not at work) to go; You need a reason to go; You need money to spend there.

    Most people meeting the last condition have the Friday after Turkey-day off from work, thus meeting the second condition. Most retail sales staff do not, thus meeting the first condition. And our annual Materialism-and-oh-yeah-that-dead-Jew festival provides the final condition, a reason to go shopping in the first place.


    Shopping on-line changes all that. The store always has its virtual doors open. They always have what you want, even if you don't know you want something. You can even find things on the cheap, if you look around carefully. It eliminates three of the four constraints necessary for a "holiday" flood of shoppers to occur on a particular day. And for the only one remaining, we still have at least another 20 or so "shopping" days up to which Amazon will guarantee delivery by December 25th. So no rush.


    The entire premise of a mad rush to shop on one particular day comes from the same minds that can't understand why we "abandon" 90% of shopping carts at online stores, after they force us to add items to a cart to see its price.

    Nothing to see here, move along - Captain Obvious has struck again.

    1. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by kria · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In addition, of course, most stores have huge sales on that Friday. It would be interesting to see the order that all this occured in, but I suspect that the sales just made a fairly popular shopping day into a very popular one.

      Of course, even Black Friday is only the Fifth Largest Shopping Day of the year. Apparently weekends leading up to Christmas are bigger, and I suspect that peaks in online shopping will occur based on when things can be shipped to get to people in time for Christmas. This year, with Christmas on a Sunday, I suspect that Christmas Eve will be an astounding shopping day.

    2. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Milican · · Score: 1, Informative

      "Materialism-and-oh-yeah-that-dead-Jew festival"

      I understand where you are coming on the materialism issue. However, Christian or not, it would be nice if you showed a little more respect. Although I have my own beliefs, I respect the beliefs of others. Especially in a public forum. To not do so reflects poorly on you.

      JOhn

    3. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Not_Wiggins · · Score: 1

      Nice summary.
      However, you missed touching on your last (and perhaps most important to the "lack of shopping this year") point:

      ...You need money to spend there.

      There was a massive spike in US bankruptcy claims the 4th quarter of this year. This was mostly spurred on by the changes in laws around bankruptcy making it more difficult to do. So large was this spike that many credit card companies profits for 4th quarter are projected to be wiped out completely. With so many people declaring, their spending will be curbed, to say the least.
      Add to that that there hasn't been a rousing economic recovery, and I'd say we're looking at a fairly red Christmas season.

      On the rest of your comment about the non-need to rush, I suspect marketers/businesses are pushing especially hard this year because they know it will be hard to get into the black.

      It is easy to put out hype. It is hard to convince Joe Six-pack to spend his dollars at BestBuy instead of food when the money is scarce.

      --
      Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
    4. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > "Materialism-and-oh-yeah-that-dead-Jew festival"
      >
      >I understand where you are coming on the materialism issue. However, Christian or not, it would
      >be nice if you showed a little more respect. Although I have my own beliefs, I respect the
      >beliefs of others. Especially in a public forum. To not do so reflects poorly on you.

      Exactly. For some of us, Christmas isn't about a dead jew on a stick - it's about the pagan festivities that were shamelessly ripped off by christians in a bid to shore up their `me too` wanabee religion.

    5. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by atta1 · · Score: 1

      Well, that explains why overall spending was up year to year AND the number of people shopping was up, according to the National Retail Federation , the folks who track such things. It's easy to put out opinions. It is hard to convince Joe Slashdot who actually takes the time to research.

      --
      "The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote" -- Kosh
    6. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by pla · · Score: 3, Insightful

      However, Christian or not, it would be nice if you showed a little more respect

      For the most part, I do respect people's religious beliefs. I will, to my dying death, argue in support of your right to believe in anything that makes you feel better about your relation to Life, The Universe, and Everything. So long as it doesn't directly affect me; for example if your beliefs tell you to blow me up, you have lost any claim on my "respect".

      I won't, however, humor you about your particular choice of imaginary friend. I don't humor parents who lie to their kids about Santa and the Eostre Bunny, either (I don't go out of my way to disillusion them, but asking me a direct question such as "so what time do you think Santa visited last night" for the amusement of the wee ones will not have a good outcome). And I'll damn sure put my foot down when it comes to indoctrinating kids with FSM-worthy nonsense in direct contradiction with demonstrable facts.


      Personally, I do believe in a creator deity, but I don't have the impudence (or ignorance) to claim I can ever "know" anything about that deity... Beyond the mere fact that I exist, or more accurately, that existance itself exists.

      Now, if you happen to consider yourself a Christian, then you should feel offended by what I wrote. But not because of how I wrote it, rather, because I described the sad reality of your biggest religious festival. The material world has taken what should count as a joyous celebration of the birth of the son of your bhakti's god (time shifted to match the winter solstice, no doubt out of "respect" for those religions that held that as a holy day), and turned it into a day of worship of the jolly fat consumer of Coca Cola.

      "Ford be praised!"

    7. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by pipingguy · · Score: 1


      Look at it this way: he's either dead but spiritually alive or hasn't even showed up yet. As I get older (and the fatter my belly becomes), I'm starting to believe more in buddhism.

      Little kids and puppies like to touch my belly and that's pretty neat.

    8. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Not_Wiggins · · Score: 1

      It is easy to settle; we'll see how 4th quarter/year 2005 results turn out in a couple of months.

      Honestly, I hope you're the one that's right.

      --
      Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
    9. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Kombat · · Score: 1

      The material world has taken what should count as a joyous celebration of the birth of the son of your bhakti's god (time shifted to match the winter solstice, no doubt out of "respect" for those religions that held that as a holy day), and turned it into a day of worship of the jolly fat consumer of Coca Cola.

      I think people who criticise the rampant "consumerism" of the holidays are short-sighted hypocrites who fail to realize that the only reason our quality of life is possible is precisely because of said consumerism. I'm sure you already know that the reason it's called "Black Friday" is because it's the time of year when retailers finally move out of the red and into the profitable black column on their balance sheets. But, don't you find it a little frightening that it doesn't happen until late November? Don't you think that our society is balancing on a pretty precarious economic cliff if we operate in a deficit for 11 months of the year, finally turning profitable in the last and final month?

      Don't you see that if it weren't for the annual "shopping spree" ritual, the companies might night make it into the black at all? "So what," you may retort. On the face of it, who cares if The Gap or Tommy Hilfiger or whoever else makes huge profits. Well, our society is capitalist. Love it or leave it. The reason we all have clean water and working sewers and reliable power and cheap gas (yeah, that's right, I said cheap gas; look at every country in Europe and tell me I'm wrong) and a relatively stable society is because of our capitalist nature. If you don't like it, you're welcome to leave and be all altruistic and idealistic somewhere a little "redder" than North America. Enjoy your rice, and don't complain about not being able to afford meat.

      We need people to spend foolishly. It's what allows us smart ones to get good jobs and make good money that we can spend sensibly and retire wealthy. We're capitalists. It is hypocritical to sit there on your $1500 laptop wearing name-brand clothing and deride the very system that affords you such luxuries.

      --
      Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
    10. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Guuge · · Score: 1

      The colorful phrase "Materialism-and-oh-yeah-that-dead-Jew festival" is a parody of the modern mainstream perspective on Christmas. The point is that Christmas, a Christian holy day, is now more about commercialism and consumption than about Christ himself. The "oh-yeah-that-dead-Jew" bit refers to the lack of attention paid to Christ during the better part of the Christmas season. If there is disrespect to decry then it is to be found every day for the next month in shopping centers across the nation.

    11. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by archipunk · · Score: 1
      It was interesting to hear all the spin being applied to the term "Black Friday" that was being tossed around this year. It's supposedly "the day that retailers start to turn a profit (or have their books in the black)" according to several reports I heard over the past couple of days. (Of course, many businesses, especially in retail, have their financial year start in the fall rather than following the calendar year. I very much doubt they have already met all their expenses for the coming fiscal year after only a couple months of retail operation during the slow autumn season.

      Curiously, before this year, I had never heard that definition applied. I think what's more likely is that some marketing organization was afraid that "Buy Nothing Day" was gaining some traction and wanted to try to counter the frightful connotations of "Black Friday," so they coined a nice fable for the origin of the term.

    12. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chocolate rations are up 2 lbs this month....

    13. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by quietlysubversive · · Score: 1

      no you don't. be honest with yourself.

      --
      ----(o)----
    14. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Rasta+Prefect · · Score: 1
      I think people who criticise the rampant "consumerism" of the holidays are short-sighted hypocrites who fail to realize that the only reason our quality of life is possible is precisely because of said consumerism. I'm sure you already know that the reason it's called "Black Friday" is because it's the time of year when retailers finally move out of the red and into the profitable black column on their balance sheets. But, don't you find it a little frightening that it doesn't happen until late November? Don't you think that our society is balancing on a pretty precarious economic cliff if we operate in a deficit for 11 months of the year, finally turning profitable in the last and final month?

      Maybe if people didn't spend the first four months of the year paying off christmas debt it wouldn't take so long for stores to be profitable? It's not like the money is going to disappear - they're gonna spend it one way or another. Few people need a _reason_ to spend recklessly.

      --
      Why?
    15. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Kombat · · Score: 1

      It's not like the money is going to disappear - they're gonna spend it one way or another. Few people need a _reason_ to spend recklessly.

      I'm not sure I agree. My Christmas budget is around $1500. That's a sizeable chunk of my income that I don't think I'd have otherwise spent, particularly since a lot of it (as you mentioned) comes out of credit that gets paid off later. I mean, I spend money on birthday presents and whatnot throughout the year, but the "Christmas rush" tends to get consumers caught up in the idea that "I've already got $800 on my Visa that I have no prayer of paying off this month, so I might as well get my brother the XBox 360 he really wants."

      If it was money that was just sitting in my bank account, then I might agree that you have a point, and that the money "was going to be spent anyway." But I think the fact that so much Christmas shopping is financed with credit rebuts that theory by demonstrating that it is money that the consumers would not otherwise have spent. It's that credit that is driving our economy more and more, as income increases fall farther and farther behind housing and energy cost increases.

      --
      Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
    16. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by pla · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm sure you already know that the reason it's called "Black Friday" is because it's the time of year when retailers finally move out of the red and into the profitable black column on their balance sheets

      Although this doesn't apply to privately held stores, at least any corporate retail chains have to report their earnings quarterly. And any non-R&D company that reported three out of four quarters in the red would find itself trading as penny stocks within just a few cycles of that.


      Not to say that such a claim counts as entirely untrue, though - I suspect it counts as "true" in the same way that you can truthfully claim that Americans have to work almost until June to reach "Tax Freedom Day", the day we stop working just to pay our taxes, and start our year "in the black" so to speak.


      So, I suppose that in some retail sectors, the fairly thin profit margins mean that, if you add up all their costs for the coming year and start counting income against them from January 1st onward, they might experience an analogous "Overhead Freedom Day" sometime in late November. But looking at the numbers like that would leave everything after that point, including the very lucrative holiday season, as pure profit... So not quite such a bleak outlook as staying in the red for 11 months.



      Or to look at from a more common-sense approach - Why even open the doors from February to October if you'll only run a loss for the first 11 months? They'd make more, in the long run, to go on vacation for nine or ten months out of the year.

    17. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by onepoint · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >>I don't humor parents who lie to their kids about Santa and the Eostre Bunny, either (I don't go out of my way to disillusion them, but asking me a direct question such as "so what time do you think Santa visited last night" for the amusement of the wee ones will not have a good outcome).

      You don't have kids yet do you. I hope whomever you have ruined x-mass won't return the favor. I guess you have never seen a kid's joy on the morning of x-mass or organizing the Easter egg hunt for 30 kids in the neighborhood ( does not matter the faith, the fun is in the search ).

      we still make cookies for Santa and leave a carrot out for Rudolph. I hope to do it for ever.

      Onepoint

      --
      if you see me, smile and say hello.
    18. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think people who criticise the rampant "consumerism" of the holidays are short-sighted hypocrites who fail to realize that the only reason our quality of life is possible is precisely because of said consumerism.

      Only if by "quality of life" you mean to include all of the worthless crap we buy that doesn't really improve our quality of life at all. The effort spent making and buying that ultimately unsatisfying crap could instead be spent wisely, leading to a real improvement in quality of life.

    19. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by nelsonal · · Score: 1

      Many of those bankruptcies were filed very premptivly (some weren't even behind on payments but filed anyway). From what I've seen this year is shaping up similar to last year, the relativly wealthy will be spending considerably more than last year (Best Buy reported excellent sales, I'll be shocked if Nordstrom's Sak's and Neiman differ), while those of modest means are chasing bargains witness the reversal of Wal-Mart and Target's fortunes after Target was very promotional last year and Wal-Mart was promotional this year.

      --
      Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
    20. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Just a warning about that "guaranteed" delivery. Last year I partook of that offer and ordered something on the very last day. Then some freak winter storm gave UPS major headaches and delays, so I didn't receive my order until several days after Christmas. Not really Amazon's fault, and the guarantee is really no such thing, but a warning that Mother Nature can throw a wrench into your last-minute shopping plans.

      I suggest everyone immediatly go do all their holiday online shopping today. In fact, they should buy everything twice, from different retailers, just to be sure. This message was paid for by the American Online Retailers Association

    21. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by nelsonal · · Score: 1

      Tuesday mornings closes in January for just this reason. Retail sales remain highly seasonal (more than half their annual profit is earned in the three months Nov-Jan). This may have been true when retail operations were smaller so fixed costs were a larger portion of sales (retail has always been run on a slim margin).
      More likely is that for many stores the extra sales means that they cover the year's total costs around the end of November and every sale beyond the current would have much higher profit contribution when examined on an annual basis. To give an example, take a $1 billion in sales retailer that has 25% gross margins and annual operating expenses of $150 million. It is highly likely that the company reaches $600 million in sales around the Friday after Thanksgiving (the point at which cumulative GP for the year is $150 million). While this type of examination violates numerous accounting principles it is an easy connotation for lay business people to make.

      --
      Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
    22. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Kombat · · Score: 1

      Only if by "quality of life" you mean to include all of the worthless crap we buy that doesn't really improve our quality of life at all.

      No, I meant things like housing, energy, and healthy food, with enough leftover to build up a sizeable nest egg big enough to sustain that level of quality of life indefinitely into one's retirement years. People in "poor" countries don't have such luxuries, and instead must share cramped housing with large numbers of siblings, and parents must give up their independence and rely on their children to support them in their old age.

      --
      Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
    23. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by shawb · · Score: 1

      This outlook makes a lot more sense. Ignoring the extra burst from christmas spending, It's basically saying that companies usually make around 9% profit from all the investments they make throughout the year (investments including everything they pay for... labor, physical building, power, products to stock the shelves with, etc etc etc.) If you estimate December as having twice as much sales, this puts ROI up to about 9.5% which still sounds about right.

      --
      I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
    24. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Damn, you're a prick.

    25. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And you've never had someone else push their religious beliefs on you. Someone being forced to state something which he believs is blatantly false just so a kid doesn't cry is obviously not freedom of religion. This can come from both ends, too: an atheist who believes Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are simply tools designed to teach children how to believe in mythical figures or a deeply devout Christian who believes the commercialism and worship of the false deity "Santa" debase the true meaning of the birth of their Lord and Saviour.

      If you don't want your kids to cry because they found out you had been lying to them (that is the reason they cry when they find out Santa isn't real, and they will eventually find out he isn't real even if it takes Santa not bringing presents down the chimney when the child grows up and has kids of his own) you either have to A)not lie to them or B)not make the lie dependant on other people to promote it as well. I really think it doesn't take the belief in a myth to light up children's eyes when there is a huge stack of presents under the tree. A child's eyes light up when they see birthday presents all wrapped up and a cake with candles just for them. I still really liked Christmas long after I realized that Santa's handwriting was the same as my mom's.

    26. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by sjames · · Score: 1

      I think people who criticise the rampant "consumerism" of the holidays are short-sighted hypocrites who fail to realize that the only reason our quality of life is possible is precisely because of said consumerism.

      Others have already commented adequately on the slight of hand calculations of Black Friday, so I'll skip that one.

      Your comments on consumerism are little more true than the old fallacy that breaking someone's window or having a war are good for the economy. If the winter feeding frenzy is so important to western civilization, I'd suggest those "financial wizards" in D.C. do something to make sure the consumers have plenty to spend. Consumerism is NOT necessary to capitalism.

      A "Consumer" is someone who primarily works his ass off all year just to give the proceeds to someone else. Consumerism is, in part, a ludicrous idea that people (depersonalized as "consumers") exist to service "producers" or the economy itself rather than the other way around.

      A natural result of this is that the many non-economic aspects of life (that make it worth living in the first place) are devalued in favor of consumerism. Most people are exposed to several hours a day of psy ops like propaganda to reinforce the skewed value system.

      For nearly a century, merchants have benefited from the tradition of Christmas gifts. As time goes on, they try harder and harder to wring out every last penny they can get, and in the process, become increasingly crass (and so offend a few more people every year). Eventually, we'll see the Christmas decorations going up in late June, and they will find that if you cut open the goose that lays the golden eggs, all you get is goose guts.

      I make no claims of any vast mercantile conspiracy, consumerism is just an out of control race to the bottom.

      I don't know about the OP, but I type this to you on a second hand laptop wearing whatever was inexpensive at the time. I refuse to pay anyone big bucks for the "honor" of wearing their name on slave-made clothes.

    27. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by StikyPad · · Score: 1

      You jest, but abandoned online shopping carts are starting to clog the information superhighway, not to mention the physchological effect it has on the carts themselves. Join us, amazon.com, in stamping out shopping cart abuse. When people abandon their carts, everyone loses.

    28. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by sjames · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure I agree. My Christmas budget is around $1500. That's a sizeable chunk of my income that I don't think I'd have otherwise spent,

      While you probably know yourself best, If you're anything like most people, you WOULD have spent that $1500 sooner or later. Think back through the year, what didn't you buy (counting entertainment) because you remembered that credit card bill would be due in a few days? Since I don't know you, I'm just guessing, but if you were likely to just sock that $1500 away if not for Christmas, you probably wouldn't need to buy presents on credit.

    29. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by StikyPad · · Score: 1

      Personally, my parents never taught me about Santa, or the Easter Bunny, and I felt like I missed a whole part of my childhood.

      Kids believe lots of things are real. Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc. The lines between fiction and fact are blurred when you're young (and continue to be for some adults), but for the most part it's harmless. And it's neither practical nor effective to point out each and every example of what's real, what's not, and what's indefinite -- it's just being a killjoy. Instead, teach kids how to evaluate for themselves the world around them.

      As an aside, kids cry over anything, for any reason, so extrapolating that something is wrong because it makes a kid cry is absurd.

    30. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by toddestan · · Score: 1

      You sound like the type of person who defends big government spending pork projects because, hey - it gives people jobs! Nevermind the fact that money could be better spent, or given back to the people in the form of lower taxes. All of which would better everyone's lives, instead of bettering a handful that happen to be building a bridge to nowhere.

      Besides I would think it would be better if the money was spread out over the year, which would likely be the case if we didn't celebrate Christmas the way we do now. I'm sure part of the reason that sales are so slow for the early part of the year is because people spend so much during the holidays that it takes them months to pay off their credit card bills.

      I think the whole idea of Christmas is pretty wasteful. A lot of stuff gets purchased for other people that those people, quite simply, don't want. Just take a look at the returns counter come December 26th if you don't believe me. A lot more stuff ends up stuffed in someone's basement or attic. I know it sounds selfish, but people would be better off just spending the money themselves the way they best see fit. Atleast that way the rent is more likely to get paid. And it wouldn't hurt most people to save a little money too and make some investments for the future, instead of just thinking about today. It would be nice to have an economy that is held up by more than overconsumption and consumer debt.

    31. Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! by PhreakOfTime · · Score: 1

      Why is it that when someone disagrees with the assumption of christmas it is assumed they dont have kids?

      I have a child, and I agree that it is rediculous to make up stories like this FOR YOUR RELIGION. There is nothing wrong with stories, there are plenty of them around to enjoy. But none of them claim to be a reason of celebration in your REAL LIFE. That is where the line is crossed in my, and many others, opinion.

      So, no I dont agree with you that lying to someone to put a smile on their face is a 'good thing'.

      If you still derive joy form the memories of being decieved as a child, perhaps therapy is more what you need instead of celebration of fantasies and deception.

  22. when... by mangus_angus · · Score: 1, Funny

    will the cybermonday sales ad's be leaked on the net? I hope these people do a better job next year, I couldn't find a single one for amazon, tigerdirect, or newegg!!

  23. Cyber* by stalky14 · · Score: 1

    I think the prefix "cyber" needs to be taken out back and shot.
    It's been run into the ground, through to the other side of
    the Earth and then back through again.

    It's not clever anymore, media! Jeez...

    1. Re:Cyber* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      don't you mean BIZARRO shot?

    2. Re:Cyber* by PezJunkie42 · · Score: 1

      Do you prefer the lowercase 'e' prefix? (Ooh, eMonday!) Although I suppose that one's a bit outdated as well. Maybe they can paint it white and throw an 'i' in front of it. That's pretty trendy these days. At least they didn't mention the Information Superhighway.

  24. Re:What's Thanksgiving??? by Malc · · Score: 1

    I guess they don't care for our money. Not that I'd pay anyway as there are better discussion threads on the Usenet for free.

  25. CyberDay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well I declare tomorrow Cyber Wednesday as I'll be doing my grocery shopping online ... maybe I should run a /. poll to see who else will be doing theirs - and wow! a new national day is born!

  26. Properly, 110 results. Not 1 Million by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Parent is right. Furthermore, it looks more like 110 results to me.

    I trust the 1Million phrase combinations on google are mostly random if this is truly a new word, except when you search for CyberMonday as a single word. The resuls actually seem relevant in that search, but it's mostly forums.

  27. Every day is cyber -----day by digitaldc · · Score: 1

    What good is a work day without the internet? People would be quitting their jobs in droves.

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
  28. Can we get rid of real monday too? by Tachikoma · · Score: 1, Funny

    I mean seriously...no one needs REAL monday either

    --
    i don't care
    1. Re:Can we get rid of real monday too? by Haydn+Fenton · · Score: 1

      Yeah, mondays are a terrible way to spend 1/7th of your life.

    2. Re:Can we get rid of real monday too? by Frobisher · · Score: 1

      A couple of weeks ago, someone suggested on BBC Radio 4's "Genius" show (very funny BTW), that the days of the week should be pulled out of a random "lottery draw" once every 7 days, just to add a bit of spice to the week...

  29. Talliwhacker Tuesday! by CyricZ · · Score: 1, Funny

    Today has been declared Talliwhacker Tuesday! Everyone who is capable of obtaining and maintaining an erection shall stroke it to the point of ejaculation.

    Alas, I cannot participate, as I suffer from severe impotency.

    --
    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
    1. Re:Talliwhacker Tuesday! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the average /.'ers world, EVERYDAY is Talliwhacker Tuesday.

    2. Re:Talliwhacker Tuesday! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can buy something for that online, just wait for the next Cyber-Monday...

    3. Re:Talliwhacker Tuesday! by jrumney · · Score: 5, Funny
      Alas, I cannot participate, as I suffer from severe impotency.

      Please contact me urgently about a large number of emails intended for you that have ended up in my inbox.

    4. Re:Talliwhacker Tuesday! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fear not! I shall avenge your death! ...and many others!

  30. 12th biggest day? 12th?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When it comes down to TWELVTH biggest day, shouldn't it be a non-event?? I can see hyping #1, second biggest and maybe even 3rd, but 12th? Who cares!

    1. Re:12th biggest day? 12th?!?! by 'nother+poster · · Score: 1

      Well, they hype Black Friday to death, and it is usually the third or fourth biggest sales day of the year by dollar value. Historically, the Saturday before Christmas is the largest sales day with the Sunday before, and the second Saturday before being larger than Black Friday.

  31. Oh, just wait... by greg_barton · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A few more years of this hype and it may well exist. Just wait.

    The interesting question is, "Why the hype?" Or, more specifically, "Why do some people want it to exist?"

    A related question is, "How can the entire media be manipulated to hype something that doesn't really exist?" Sounds *cough*WMD*cough* familiar, doesn't it?

    1. Re:Oh, just wait... by Malpheus · · Score: 1

      One must wonder, though, who is really manipulating who? Is it the media pulling the strings attached to businesses and consumers for their own ends? Or perhaps it is the businesses taking advantage of the media and using it to get consumers to spend more? Then again, it could be that consumers are manipulating everyone to get what they want at a price that is Cheap Bastard compliant. Do we bring this hype on ourselves, and what does it have to do with Microsoft's plot to rule the world? The world may never know.

      --
      Free you mind. May the Force be with you.
    2. Re:Oh, just wait... by eric_brissette · · Score: 1

      I hope you're right. I didn't realize that the term Cyber Monday was new, I just figured I hadn't heard about it before.

      I don't do the Black Friday thing because I'd rather avoid the mobs of rude people going into fits of frenzied consumerism (I know, how un-American of me). I was hoping to buy some cheap hardware online on "Cyber Monday" but most of the deals pretty much sucked, and didn't even come close to stuff my more tolerant friends bought at Staples on Black Friday before 11am. (the 200 gig Maxtor HD for $30 after rebates sticks in my head)

      Oh well.

  32. I celebrated Cyber-monday by digitalderbs · · Score: 1

    I did my share of cyber-ing.

  33. Lemmings to the Internet by Billosaur · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Of course Cyber Monday doesn't exist, by way of the fact that you can shop at most e-tailers at any time, any day, and with advances in shipping, you can shop and get things delivered to you right up to Christmas day in most cases.

    Of course some marketing person thought this up -- they thought up New Coke didn't they?

    From Business Week: That's not to suggest that the Cyber Monday boost is a total fabrication. The fact is, people do most of their online shopping at work -- 58% of them, according to comScore Networks. They often get started in earnest on Mondays, when they return from a frustrating weekend at the mall to their broadband connections at work.

    The fact is, many of us are smart enough not to buy into the hype of Black Friday, let alone Cyber Monday. I can shop online any time, from work, from home. It's easier to do from work because there's little chance of someone discovering what you're buying. Mind you, you have to be careful and actually work occasionally...

    --
    GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
    1. Re:Lemmings to the Internet by StikyPad · · Score: 1

      Mmmm.. New Coke.

      Oh, the drink from the 80s...?

  34. realtime retail monitoring at akamai. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I dug this up on Akamai's website.

    http://www.akamai.com/en/html/industry/nui/retail/

  35. Re:What's Thanksgiving??? by Antifuse · · Score: 1

    Ummm... so what you're saying is - they should make it less US-centric to please you, a non-paying non-subscriber, even though you freely admit that you have no plans on paying to become a subscriber?

  36. 779,000 results? more like 300. by Sam+H · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Doing a simple Google search I get "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 283 already displayed." although more than 1,000,000 pages were indexed. (YMMV, all Google frontends don't yield the same results, especially with newly coined terms). This simply means that hundreds of useless blogs or news sites use the phrase on hundreds of their pages, and that those pages are accessible through hundreds of different URLs. Typical Google pollution.

    --
    God, root, what is difference ?
    1. Re:779,000 results? more like 300. by dragons_flight · · Score: 1

      That only shows that ~70% of the top 1000 google results were judged to be redundant. The Google algorithm first selects the 1000 most useful results (so you can never actually receive more than 1000 results), and then filters out the ones they consider redundant, which in your case left 283 results. This doesn't mean there aren't 778,000 other pages out there using the term "Cyber Monday".

  37. Like the "nine months after" myths... by dpbsmith · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sounds a lot like the "baby train" and "birthrate peak nine months after the 1965 Northeast US blackout" myths. Only less entertaining.

    Someone said, "Gee, I betcha there's a lot of online shopping when people get back to work and their high-speed internet connections" and the plausible and amusing speculation became a legend.

    I actually was skeptical about this, because most e-commerce sites are quite usable even at dialup speeds, and, conversely, DSL and cable are far from rare.

    It's not like the days when people had 28Kbps modems at home and T1s at work.

    It would be very interesting if someone actually managed to track the "Cyber Monday" meme to its source. It might be possible, since it originated recently and probably spread mostly via the Internet.

    1. Re:Like the "nine months after" myths... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would be very interesting if someone actually managed to track the "Cyber Monday" meme to its source. It might be possible, since it originated recently and probably spread mostly via the Internet.

      From TFA:

      It turns out that Shop.org, an association for retailers that sell online, dreamed up the term just days before putting out a Nov. 21 press release touting Cyber Monday as "one of the biggest online shopping days of the year."

    2. Re:Like the "nine months after" myths... by smallpaul · · Score: 1

      It would be very interesting if someone actually managed to track the "Cyber Monday" meme to its source. It might be possible, since it originated recently and probably spread mostly via the Internet.

      The article you are replying to spends about half of its text describing in detail where the meme came from and what the motivations were of the creators!

    3. Re:Like the "nine months after" myths... by Minwee · · Score: 1

      So what you're saying is that it would be very interesting if someone actually managed to "Read The Article". It might be possible, since it is linked here and probably available on the Internet.

  38. Behold! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    ..the power of SPAM

  39. Myth URL by dpbsmith · · Score: 1

    Hmmm, not sure why my URL showed up properly when I previewed but not when I posted. Let me try again. It was

    http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/babtrain.htm

    i.e. here

  40. Wait.. it was a SHOPPING day? by AnswerIs42 · · Score: 1
    Um.. er... hmm... To all the people I was cybering with yesterday... sorry about that. I had missread the "Cyber" part..

    Hmm... it's gonna make the meeting with HR awkard this afternoon..

  41. Re:What's Thanksgiving??? by Malc · · Score: 1

    Yep. There's no way I'll ever pay for /. whilst it's a US-centric site. Otherwise I might consider it. I'm sure there are other people in the same position. Unfortunately /. also has other issues that leave me disinclined to pony up for it.

  42. 90% abandoned carts??? omg!!! by Urusai · · Score: 1

    That's a lot of restocking!

  43. Not to be confused with "cyber tuesday" by Zane+Edwards · · Score: 1, Funny

    Which only gets 2,100 hits in google (with quotes).

  44. Black Friday was out Cyber Monday (stupid name!) by Pontiac · · Score: 1

    What a load of crap..

    By Monday all the good deals are GONE!!!!

    Most stores have the same sales online on Friday that they do in the stores and they start at midnight.. Just stay up after Thanksgiving (if you can, stupid Turkey). Hit Ben's Bargins & Fat Wallet then go shopping at midnight EST.

    We scored everything we wanted and never set foot in the shopping nightmare at the mall.

    --
    If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
  45. Link to 'o rly?' owls by sczimme · · Score: 1


    I believe you are required to link to pictures of the 'O Rly?' owls. :-) Linky to Google cache for the three people that have not yet seen the owls.

    Yes, I know owls can't smile, etc. with their beaks, but the original picture cracks me up anyway. (I'm easily amused.) He just looks so joyous and enthusiastic, even though that's a gross misanthropomorphism.

    --
    I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
    1. Re:Link to 'o rly?' owls by dogbowl · · Score: 1

      You know, I just don't get that joke.

      Is it a Harry Potter reference (haven't seen or read any yet), or am I just getting too old these days??

      --

      These pretzels are making me thirsty.
    2. Re:Link to 'o rly?' owls by sczimme · · Score: 0


      You know, I just don't get that joke.

      Is it a Harry Potter reference (haven't seen or read any yet), or am I just getting too old these days??


      Harry has a white owl named Hedwig that looks a bit like the 'O Rly' owl (in that they are both white and are both owls). The joke is that Harry is lamenting the identity of his parents' killer and the owl responds 'O Rly?', which (I suppose) is something Hedwig is unlikely to do.

      The Harry Potter movies are actually pretty entertaining. I haven't read any of the books so I can't speak to those.

      --
      I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
    3. Re:Link to 'o rly?' owls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Originally the joke had nothing to do with Harry Potter. That was meant as an extension of the joke. The "joke" is just a big stupid looking owl sarcastically saying "Oh, really?" (spelled as "O RLY?"), generally posted in lieu of an actual reply to a stupid post on a forum, as a form of trolling.

      It's honestly not that funny.

  46. Odd title--Cyber Monday? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have been celebrating "cyber Monday" each Monday for the past 10 years or so but it has nothing to do with shopping. It's more of an IRC thing.

  47. hype by SmellTheCoffee · · Score: 1

    Yet another termed coined to increase sales. How is this not a hype? The corporations and self-appointed analysts think people have not bought enough (or we've not earned enough) so we should go ahead and create a hype so that hype-deprived consumers will jump on and start clicking wildly. Honestly I think it just propagates the culture of over-consumption and waste.

    The prefix "cyber" negates the requirement of naming a day there...it can be any day for that matter. If I want to buy something, it is "cyber that-day" for me.

  48. Cyber Monday... the day for by hypergreatthing · · Score: 1

    Breaking out your old AOL account and going into those looking for love teenager chatrooms. Or...
    Breaking out the latest posts from blood ninja and laughing it up.

  49. i had never heard of it... by drewxhawaii · · Score: 1

    ...until a few days ago.

    but i did manage to get a Dell 2005FPW Ultrasharp Widescreen 20" LCD for $334

    whether or not Dell endorses cyber-monday is debatable

    1. Re:i had never heard of it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      $334? How did you manage this?

  50. I'm such a tool of the "man" by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 1

    I just bought about $2000 of computer parts Monday. Now I read this. I'm a pawn!

    --
    It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  51. way to... by drewxhawaii · · Score: 0

    ...MISS THE WHOLE POINT.

  52. This has been my experience by theblueprint · · Score: 1
    I work as production manager for a toy company. I am responsible for product being in the correct location to ship, so I see every order.

    Our sales Friday were the best ever for our "direct" business. Yesterday's orders (in front of me) are standard for the season, but nothing like "Black Friday".

    --
    "from the bricks to the booth...I predict the future like Cleo the psychic..."
  53. Where is internet shopping this season? by artemis67 · · Score: 1

    Seriously.

    I stood in line for an hour in the freezing cold on Thursday night, for the chance to save $30 on a Bluetooth headset at CompUSA (store opened at midnight). Unfortunately, there were 500 people in line ahead of me (and another 700 behind me), so ALL the good stuff was gone by the time I got into the store. I left empty-handed. I was going to get up early on Friday morning to stand in line, but after that experience, no way.

    I have to wonder why internet retailers aren't trying to put the kibosh on B&M outlets on Black Friday. The whole "Cyber Monday" thing seemed far-fetched to me... many people will have already blown their wad of cash over the weekend.

    If I were a cyber retailer, I'd have a blowout sale from 8 PM to midnight on Thanksgiving Day, and get the jump on Black Friday. Nobody WANTS to get up at 4 AM and spend an hour or two in line outside in the cold.

    1. Re:Where is internet shopping this season? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Nobody WANTS to get up at 4 AM and spend an hour or two in line outside in the cold."

      Slacker :)

      I went directly from the CompUSA sale (got everything but the silly MP3 player I didn't really need) to Circuit City's 5AM sale. Who needs sleep? =)

      I'm not really a troll, *really*

  54. I didn't shop on Cyber Monday From Work... by B11 · · Score: 1

    Cuts into all my other non-productive web surfing.

    --
    insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
  55. What?! by Tashmire · · Score: 0

    Your gonna tell me Cyber Monday doesn't exist. First Santa, then the WWF, then this. Why do I even bother trying to Believe in something.

  56. If it doesn't exist - why waste time covering it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IF it doesn't exist, why would Slashdot waste an article on it?

    BROOKLYN
    -THE NON ANONYMOUS COWARD

  57. Wag the dog by Mr.+Stinky · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yeah, of all people my Mom told me about this on Sunday. I am an online retailer, and historically the Monday after Thanksgiving has not been the best, however yesterday was our largest day ever on record, beating the prior largest day by about 40% more! I belive because of the hype produced by the media, it subconsciously persuaded people who would have bought on Tuesday or Wednesday to buy on Monday. I hate it when my Mom is right!!! -=Dave

    --
    Nothing is foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
  58. cyber monday is very very real by davejenkins · · Score: 1

    We saw a 35% bump in sales between last week and yesterday. Cyber Monday is very very real.

    1. Re:cyber monday is very very real by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We saw a 35% bump in sales between last week and yesterday. Cyber Monday is very very real.

      Not sure if your being funny or trying to act like you have some sort of data that no one else does... but *whispers* people had off 4 days in that time.

      Of course you're going to see a 35% bump in sales, 'black friday' has basically turned into a black weekend in today's world. Cyber Monday hardly has anything to do with this... Unless there is a spike specifically on Monday. (and is repeatable)

  59. Re:What's Thanksgiving??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From Diwali? Or Eid (this year)? Perhaps Halloween (they do that in the USA I think).

  60. I was wondering about this by gorbachev · · Score: 1

    There weren't any good deals online on Monday that I saw, especially compared to the insane deals on Thu - Sat, so I don't get where this "Cyber Monday" concept comes from. People were talking about it as if you could buy gold for $.01 / pound.

    --
    In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
    1. Re:I was wondering about this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "People" were? What people? This article is the first I've ever heard of Cyber Monday.

  61. Re:What's Thanksgiving??? by kmmatthews · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Waitasec. You have a 4 digit UID and you're just figuring this out?

    That's an entirely new realm of slow.

    --
    feh. stuff.
  62. Cyber monday is overhyped by inhalentbroom · · Score: 2, Informative

    I found this out first hand. I work at UPS in one of the sorting hubs (we get a lot of stuff from amazon and other online retailers). We were gearing up for Monday (when a lot of stuff was suppose to ship and get to us) and we didn't get too busy. Busier than normal but no where near the hype.

  63. CorpGovMedia created the American culture by Cryofan · · Score: 1

    American media and business and the government worked together for decades to create an American culture that is like a cash cow.

    We have a culture evolved by CorpGovMedia in order to bring forth a culture that would create domesticated consumer animals. Homo Sapiens Americanus. Just as early homo sapiens sapiens evolved domesticated livestock that would be compliant and serve the needs of man, so too has CorpGovMedia domesticated a subspecies of mankind--because culture is a part of man himself, the American culture has been evolved by CorpGovMedia to create Homo Sapiens Americanus--a domesticated subspecies that is evolved to generate business profits.

    America is a livestock operation. This is not a conspiracy; it is an ecosystem, with quasi-organic entities competing to survive. "Cybermonday" is just another survival ploy used by the American elite to further evolve Homo Sapiens Americanus. These are just environmental forces that act on our culture to change it over decades.

    This explains why Americans work longer hours and have less governmental benefits than Europeans. Just like the domesticated cows will walk into the slaughterhouse, while its wild cousin will run.

    --
    eat shiat and bark at the moon
  64. Accurate Numbers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do a Google search on "Cyber Monday," and you get as many as 779,000 results.

    I just searched for "Cyber Monday" in quotes and got over 2 million results. Either your first quote was way off or you really contributed to the problem by posting this article.

    In any case, it just goes to show you that in the information age, fluff travels faster than light.

  65. Re:What's Thanksgiving??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unfortunately /. also has other issues that leave me disinclined to pony up for it.

    Issues such as you being a tightwad.

  66. Created a week and a half ago? Pfft! by multipartmixed · · Score: 1
    I coined that term, like, what, a decade ago?

    Hey, baby, my folks are home tonight.. Wanna Cyber Monday?
    --

    Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
  67. The 90's callled... by Fortyseven · · Score: 1

    You know, it's like some unhappy little term from the mid 1990's got lost in time and suddenly appeared in 2005. Nobody says "cyber"-anything anymore.

    Except maybe the "CyberPlanet Keys" from Transformers: Cybertron.

  68. Is that what it is? by Minwee · · Score: 1
    Here I thought that "Cyber Monday" was the day for 40 year old men to pretend to be teenage girls and chat each other up online.

    Who knew it involved shopping too?

  69. I'm guilty... by NewWorldDan · · Score: 1

    Well, I did my part for the cyber economy yesterday (and Slashdot as well). I clicked on an add from ThinkGeek and bought my sister-in-law an Xmas present. I wasn't actually out looking for anything, but it caught my eye and conicidentally, happend to be on "Cyber-Monday". Oh, well.

  70. My niece called on the phone. by AtariDatacenter · · Score: 4, Funny

    She promptly informed me that the day was 'Cyber Day' and that everything on the Internet was 50% off.

    That'd be my dream. I told her that the only thing that was half off was women's clothing at myspace.com. She then asked me if I've ever shopped there before.

  71. Trend ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
    According to shop.org, Scott Silverman, the Executive Director of the company, coined the term during a meeting in August or September 2005 to describe an emerging trend first noticed on the Monday after Thanksgiving, 2004.
    How can you spot an annual trend after a single year ? He'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
    1. Re:Trend ? by toddestan · · Score: 1

      How can you spot an annual trend after a single year ? He'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

      I would guess that it had been going on for a while, it just took until 2005 for someone to notice it and give it a stupid name.

  72. A Business Meme at Internet Speed by miller60 · · Score: 1

    Sure, it's a manufactured story. But it illustrates the Internet's amazing power to make something out of nothing overnight, and lots of folks will be reviewing how this was done so they can replicate it. I've worked in the news media for a long time (25+ years), and am hard-pressed to recall an instant PR success of this magnitude. The Google numbers are less important than the quality of the news organizations that rose to the bait - without checking to see whether it was even true. This was all over the Net yesterday, picked up by virtually all major media outlets that pay any attention to the Internet. Expect lots of people to develop a "playbook" and try to emulate this.

  73. Gas lines by porkThreeWays · · Score: 2, Funny

    I thought I saw you in line. Remember me? We met in the gas lines after the hurricane. I met your brother once in line for Styx tickets and your Uncle in another line for space mountain. Man I love waiting in lines....

    --
    If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
  74. "Only" the twelfth? by tgeller · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The story implies that being the twelfth-biggest shopping day is some pathetic underachievement. But consider: That means it's in the 96th percentile! I'd say that's significant, especially if (as the article implies) shopping then falls off for the next week, i.e. until 5 December.

    --
    Tom Geller
  75. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  76. Re:What's Thanksgiving??? by Malc · · Score: 1

    Hang on a sec. I need to find my grandson to explain your comment to me...

  77. Hype by fdiskne1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just one more thing that demonstrates the reason I ignore the mainstream media. I refuse to believe any hype. As soon as I hear about anything "new and wonderful" I look into what makes it new and what makes it wonderful. When I first heard the term "cyber Monday", I thought to myself, "That's a bunch of bull. It's all just media hype." I was proved correct. I'm tired of all the media hype. Like NBC's Today show having the woman in a canoe to report on all the flooding, only to have a couple of guys walk through the few-inch deep water in front of her. Like the guy reporting on a hurricane a couple of years ago, struggling to stay in front of the camera despite the ferocious winds, only to have someone walk behind him, looking at him funny like "Why are you acting like the wind is blowing that hard?" Don't believe what the media tells you. All they want is to have more viewers for their commercials so they can make more money. What a bunch of crap.

    --Okay, you can now mod this -1 Obvious.

    --
    But why is the rum gone?
  78. Not a myth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I work for a PSP, we did 170% of our normal Monday transaction load yesterday, our highest peak to date discounting special events.

    1. Re:Not a myth by toddestan · · Score: 1

      I work for a PSP...

      I don't know about you, but I would rather work for a paycheck.

  79. It only has meaning to post T-Day Christians by Easy2RememberNick · · Score: 1

    It's meaningless to anyone outside the United States, non-Christians or anyone who doesn't celebrate Christmas. For example why would a Hindu, somewhere int the World, care if Christmas was coming up and if they weren't from the US they wouldn't care if Thanksgiving Day was over either.

      It's just another day.

  80. During the Next Election Annoying Buzzwords... by reversevampire · · Score: 1

    "Cyber Monday's" will only matter to that new demographic "Tech Families" (it's not popular yet! *cringe* give it a week and a half) who analysts will associate with swinging the election.

  81. Re: and Wiki says... by jank1887 · · Score: 1

    from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_friday: Black Friday (1869) - a stock market crash in the US Black Friday (1919) - a riot in Glasgow stemming from industrial unrest Black Friday (1921) - day on which British dockers' and railwaymen's union leaders announced their decision not to call for strike action against wage reductions for miners Black Friday (1939) - a day of devastating fires in Australia Black Friday (1945) - Largest air battle over Norway, over Sunnfjord Black Friday (1978) - a massacre of protesters in Iran Black Friday (1982) - known in Britain after Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, sparking the Falklands War Black Friday (2004) - a crackdown on a peaceful protest in the capital city of Maldives, Malé sounds like a great basis for "the most wonderful US consumer day of the year". /sarcasm I find the idea that it's when company's actually go into the black hard to believe. That's kind of like there being a de facto Tax Freedom Day ahref=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Freedom_Day rel=url2html-29682http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax _Freedom_Day>. Although, I guess with Black Friday, companies may incur certain fixed costs prior to the date where the incremental returns don't balance until late in the calendar year, but, as you said, the non-standard business fiscal year model really kills that B.F. theory)

  82. cyber monday eh? by John+Frink · · Score: 1

    Does that have anything to do with talking dirty to anyone online in a private chat room on monday?

    --
    Who is this Jimmy character, and why was he cracking corn in the first place?
  83. TV is bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I guess one of the benefits of not watching TV is that this is the first I've ever heard of this.

  84. Relax, we understand j00 by aztektum · · Score: 1

    I agree, but where you said "So long as it doesn't directly affect me" when it comes to someone believing what they want, is negated as being altruistic when you follow it by saying that you feel obligated to destroy small childrens innocence by revealing the truth about the Easter Bunny and Santa, in effect, forcing your beliefs on someone else.

    Someone got nothing but coal in their stocking every Christmas, huh? :P

    --
    :: aztek ::
    No sig for you!!
  85. Re: and Wiki says... by jank1887 · · Score: 1
    Ack... HTML mode'd.
    /me humbly puts on the dunce cap and goes over to the stool in the corner, while retyping with tags.

    from Wikipedia Black Friday:

    • Black Friday (1869) - a stock market crash in the US
    • Black Friday (1919) - a riot in Glasgow stemming from industrial unrest
    • Black Friday (1921) - day on which British dockers' and railwaymen's union leaders announced their decision not to call for strike action against wage reductions for miners
    • Black Friday (1939) - a day of devastating fires in Australia
    • Black Friday (1945) - Largest air battle over Norway, over Sunnfjord
    • Black Friday (1978) - a massacre of protesters in Iran
    • Black Friday (1982) - known in Britain after Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, sparking the Falklands War
    • Black Friday (2004) - a crackdown on a peaceful protest in the capital city of Maldives, Malé

    sounds like a great basis for "the most wonderful US consumer day of the year". /sarcasm

    I find the idea that it's when company's actually go into the black hard to believe. That's kind of like there being a de facto Tax Freedom Day. Although, I guess with Black Friday, companies may incur certain fixed costs prior to the date where the incremental returns don't balance until late in the calendar year, but, as you said, the non-standard business fiscal year model really kills that B.F. theory. Anyone able to dive into the real Black Friday etymology?

  86. Let me check my nondenominational Holyday calendar by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    Not to be confused with Black Thursday.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  87. "Hedwig", you say? by Thud457 · · Score: 1
    So what does he refer to as The Angry Inch?

    Poor Harry. Poor, poor Harry.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  88. Re: and Wiki says... by jank1887 · · Score: 1
    nothing like stacking my own posts:

    from The Word Spy:

    Earliest Citation:
    Christmas decorations around Tampa Bay started going up in late October, and business has been brisk since then. And while Friday - known as Black Friday for the legendary hordes - will be the biggest shopping day for many area stores, others ring up the greatest sales the Saturday before Christmas.
    --Marilyn Marks, "Retailers expect good sales this Christmas," St. Petersburg Times, November 27, 1986

    haven't found anything better. everything else seems to just point to the currently adopted usage of the term. Rather Orwellian, but such is life.

  89. Uh... no. by julesh · · Score: 1

    Google says "about 779,000 results" for me. But then if you try paging through them, you find that actually, there are less than 400 of them.

    I believe the "about ... results" figures are generated statistically based on the frequency of the words in the phrase whenever there more than some threshold amount. They're not particularly reliable.

    Still, it's a lot of articles.

  90. ah yes, the political blame game by Phil+Urich · · Score: 1

    Oh come now, it isn't the media's fault. They were simply misled by (insert Democrats or Republicans depending on your politics).

    Hey, Democrats and Republicans aren't your only options. It could, for example, be the fault of the Tories, or the Reform Party, Zionist Conspiracy, or People Being Cruel To Animals, or Microsoft, or Satan, or The Capitalists. Actually, okay, that last one isn't all that unfounded. Personally though, I'm going to go for the classic "ironic twist" version and blame Nader somehow.

    --
    I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
  91. not him, just some other random idiot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, I resent the insuniation! I mark down time spent trolling /. as part of my community service!

  92. Oh, Thank Goodness!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought the entire population had been replaced with pod people eager to repeat the next wishfull-thinking delusion
    pronounced from on high by the Corporate Providers.

  93. Cyber Monday in Google Groups and News by jea6 · · Score: 1

    Searching for "cyber monday" in Google Groups yields 1 (invalid) result for the time span 1/1/80 to 11/24/05. The first valid relevant result appears here: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.current-events. usa/browse_thread/thread/7a30f1d9cd627cc6/19c2e474 9a5d624f?lnk=st&q=%22cyber+monday%22&rnum=1&hl=en# 19c2e4749a5d624f.

    The first result in Google News (which only looks back 1 month) is this article from the Tuscaloosa News dated 11/19: http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl e?AID=/20051119/ZNYT01/511190344.

    --

    sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
  94. CyberMonday.com by thekyle2000 · · Score: 1

    I can't believe it took this long. Registered through: GoDaddy.com (http://www.godaddy.com/ Domain Name: CYBERMONDAY.COM Created on: 28-Oct-05 Expires on: 28-Oct-06 Last Updated on: 28-Oct-05

  95. Re:Black Friday was out Cyber Monday (stupid name! by loraksus · · Score: 1

    Hit Ben's Bargins & Fat Wallet then go shopping at midnight EST.
    And then have fucking shitbag stores like Best Buy cancel your orders Tuesday morning. It would be nice if Best Buy decided whether they wanted to actually sell some fucking product before they advertised it and allowed people to place orders.

    It is also nice how it takes several days for the refund to hit your card, isn't it? If someone was paranoid, they might think BB was holding the money for several days to earn interest off it.
    I'm sure BB gets a good enough rate with the credit card companies for this to be possible.

    --
    1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcfv gbhnjmk,l.;/
  96. Google by powers_722 · · Score: 1

    I get 6.7m now on google. 1.05m without quotes.

  97. Ob. Fight Club by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The first rule of Cyber Monday is - you do not talk about Cyber Monday.
    The second rule of Cyber Monday is - you DO NOT talk about Cyber Monday.

  98. I'm not a Christian. by YesIAmAScript · · Score: 1

    But you're an ass.

    I do understand you don't believe in this stuff. That's totally fine.

    But it's nice to respect the wishes of parents and how they would like to raise their kids. If they want to believe in Santa, it's respectful to play along. It's very rude not to.

    I know some parents go overboard in telling other people not to tell their kids what to do (happened to me), but within reason, I try to accomodate them.

    For the record, I don't see what Santa has to do with religion. Santa, Christmas trees and lights don't have much to do with the rebirth of Jesus. Christmas just really isn't much about religion in the US, any more than Halloween is. It's even less religious in Japan.

    It's really more about being nice to each other. Something that seems pretty lost on you, at least from your statements here.

    --
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
    1. Re:I'm not a Christian. by pla · · Score: 1

      But you're an ass.

      Fair enough. I won't even try to deny it. But sometimes, responsible adults have to suck it up and play the "bad" guy for the better good. If you enjoy lies and delusion - hey, your damage, not mine. I ask nothing more than that you don't expect me to play along.


      If they want to believe in Santa, it's respectful to play along. It's very rude not to.

      And if they believe in child rape, should we just play along? If they believe females need to have their external genitalia removed for societal control? If they believe that a shall-remain-nameless masculinized clone of Inanna wants them to blow up US landmarks?

      As I said, I don't go out of my way to steal the "magic" of the jolly fat Coca Cola salesman from kids - I consider it harmless enough (in fact far more damaging to the idea of blind adherence to a traditional family religion than to me or society in general). But I draw the line at asking me to participate in the lies. Just... don't.


      For the record, I don't see what Santa has to do with religion.

      If you don't see the glaring connection between "Oh, how cute, little Billy believes in Santa Claus" and "Oh, how cute, little Billy believes in Jesus", well, let's just say that apparently your parents never expected me to play along with a "cute" societal myth/delusion. I quite honestly wonder just how many good little sheep The Christ has lost from the flock when they managed to put those two ideas together. But I can't, and won't, stop you from lying to your own kids so long as you leave me out of it.


      It's really more about being nice to each other. Something that seems pretty lost on you, at least from your statements here.

      Oddly enough, you can derive the entirety of most reasonable religious/moral rules from the "golden" one. And conveniently enough, I follow that one.

      If I espouse a delusion, I sincerely wish for nothing better than to have someone correct me.

      Evidently not everyone feels similarly, not even in the abstract third-person sense.



      I do understand you don't believe in this stuff. That's totally fine.

      Ah, now there, you have it wrong.

      I do believe in this stuff. All of it. I consider the divine far, far larger than anything we mere hairless apes can ever imagine, encompassing not just what we consider true and false, but also that to which we can't even assign a truth-value.

      But when the hairless apes try to make specific statements about "the truth", or worse, "the divine"... Well, even if it held true, just try to imagine what it would mean if Santa really existed. Seriously. Consider the religious, political, economic, even physical, ramifications of a guy flying around the world once per year, in a single night, to give slave-elf-labor-crafted goods to all the under-18 hairless apes that have rigorously followed an arbitrary code of conduct defined by a 3800 year old Jew (a term I use literally, not derogatorily) primarily preoccupied with a very legitimate concern for food-borne pathogens and the societal stability of a nomadic tribe of conquering thunder-worshippers.

      If the words "crusades", "sharia", "misogyny", and "inquisition" didn't enter your mind, you don't actually see my point yet.

      So, no, I will not play along. If I have any "faith" at all, which I do, it lies in my belief that I should interact with the physical reality presented to me on-the-level; that my Creator did not put me here and give me eyes and a mind that I might see the planets orbit the sun and deem the "obvious" solution heresy.



      Occam's razor can even cut God.

  99. everyone isn't the same as you.. by YesIAmAScript · · Score: 1

    Perhaps you could strive to understand that.

    Not everyone who has a delusion needs to be broken of it.

    When a person is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, the doctor doesn't say "there's no chance you'll live". They leave some hope. Would your crushing it help out?

    Once that person comes to grips that they are going to die soon, if they feel they don't need to tell all their friends and relatives that this is the case, even though it might be obvious from their appearance, are these people better off if you straighten them out about it?

    I had a teacher with cancer when I was in middle school. She was going to die. She kept teaching because she liked it. But she didn't tell us students. It just wouldn't have been appropriate.

    If my neighbor tells his daughter she should work hard at soccer, perhaps she can turn pro some day, should I tell her that statistically it's impossible, that women soccer players don't really make a living anyway and that she's too short for it to boot? There's time for her to figure this out for herself later, and in the meantime, it might increase her enjoyment of her (possibly temporal) interest in soccer.

    So, although you may never wish to delude yourself, I feel you go too far in assuming everyone else should live by your credo. And honestly, I think you definitely go much too far (and perhaps stroke your ego too much) by thinking it is you who should set everyone right and make their lives better.

    As to your ridiculous comments equating believing in Santa Claus with female circumcision (which often also includes stitching the upper part of the vagina closed, BTW) or child rape is patently ridiculous. It has no actual value. Obviously there are times when rudeness is necessary and better than the alternative. The world isn't black and white, and your juxtaposition of two situations doesn't make them morally equivalent.

    I close as I began. Perhaps the primary thing you should consider is what it means to think that everyone should live according to your rules. And that if they do so, they'll find their lives better (and apparently after some thought, more enlightened). What are you saying about yourself and your way of thinking and by extension everyone else's beliefs.

    --
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
  100. over 6.6 mil now by Mika24 · · Score: 1

    about 6,690,000 for cyber monday. (0.10 seconds)

    --
    http://www.npcgaming.com Dedicated Gaming Servers
  101. Cyber Tuesday Bigger by Lord+Kestrel · · Score: 1

    We made $4.8mil US on Monday, $5.6mil US on Tuesday. Seems to me like they should call it Cyber Tuesday.

  102. Re:Black Friday was out Cyber Monday (stupid name! by Pontiac · · Score: 1

    Hmm well everything we ordered was delivered on time.. no problem.

    --
    If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
  103. Re:What's Thanksgiving??? by east+coast · · Score: 1

    The Internet is in-ter-na-tion-al.

    Hmmm... and since there are no truly international holidays nor a completely accepted international calendar, nor language I guess it's all just for not. Fuck it, we may as well pull the plug so our thin skinned cousins from afar don't get upset because we make reference to a holiday that is only recognized in a certain country. Christ forbid...

    --
    Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.