Published March 3rd, 2008
in Deal Site Reviews.
This week’s review is about DealTaker. Yan already featured DealTaker in an interview format which received a very high level of controversial discussions in the comments section there. DealTaker also is shown as the top deal site in the quick poll which is always there in the top right side of this blog’s home page, however I should point out that there is no way to identify the person who votes (probably except for the IP address). DealTaker also happens to be the first site I am reviewing which has an “active†forums setup (last week I reviewed DeaLoco, a new site with no “active†forum).
DealTaker is a site with a majority of its features based upon a forum software. Seeing the logo, my guess is that the logo colors were chosen to go along with the typical forum blue color. These forum blue colors have become so monotonous across several websites. We will now quickly see the various items in the home page top to down.
First item at the very top, is an image which says, “Add us to your toolbar!â€. Seeing this, I assumed that this takes to a cool firefox add-on or something like that; however this takes to a set of instructions on how to add this page as a bookmark into a folder which lists on the toolbar on top. I am not sure why the website operators believe that the users of their website will be so naive that, they need to be instructed on how to make a bookmark. And if you instruct, the instruction needs to be complete. The instructions tell you to add to the “Bookmarks Toolbar†folder (Firefox) and you are done. With me being the naïve user, what if my view settings was to not show the bookmark toolbar?
Next is a set of links grouped like this: RSS | (Log In | Register ), so I assume that the behavior of Log In and Register links will be similar. Clicking on “Log In†gives a pop up while “Register†takes to a new page, which misses a main tenet of usability: consistency. Next is a link which lets you enroll for periodical updates by email. To use this I had to sign up for an account. I signed up, clicked submit and again the “Terms and Conditions†page comes back, which again took me back to the registration page. This time I again entered the same registration details to learn that the username was taken, so I assumed that my sign up was successful. So, I go back to the home page and clicked on the login link on top, which shows the pop-up to login. However after clicking on the log-in button, again I am taken to the “Terms and Conditions†page.
Continue reading ‘Forum Based Daily Deal Site – DealTaker Review’
Published September 20th, 2006
in Money Saving Tips.
Looking back at the early days of my bargain hunting I recall that reading and understanding what people write in the forums can sometimes be a difficult task. It certainly took me time to get used to the slang and to learn the common abbreviations. I will try to summarize what I remember.
| Abbreviation |
Notes |
| AR – After Rebate |
Expect to pay full price and then get a rebate in a form of a check or store credit. It is usual for the merchant to require you to mail a receipt and/or UPC code cut out from the product packaging to get the rebate. |
| MIR – Mail-in Rebate |
The form of a rebate when you receive a check or coupon back by mail. It is typical for a MIR to take several weeks to get processed. See also: Definition by Wikipedia, Rebate Company Info from FatWallet |
| AC – After Coupon |
The final price implies use of a discount coupon or a promotion code. |
| YMMV – Your Mileage May Vary |
Usually means the deal may not work for some people while it will work for others. See also: Online bargain hunting |
| FAR- Free After Rebate |
While the price may actually turn out to be 0 after you deduct rebate amount don’t forget that you might still have to pay the tax and/or shipping costs. |
| S/H – Shipping and Handling |
Something people tend to forget to mention when they post a deal. |
| P/M – Price Match |
Merchants often offer a price match guarantee. This means that if you find the same product from a different merchant the seller will refund the difference (or more) to match (or beat) the competitor price. |
| OOS – Out of stock |
This is what usually happens very soon after a good deal is posted on one of the popular bargain hunting sites |
| GC – Gift Certificate |
Something you usually try to get rid off. ;-) |
| OP – Original Poster (the author of the thread) |
The person who gets the reputation points for a good deal or a lot of flame for a repost. |
See this SlickDeals posting for a more complete list of abbreviations.
Published September 18th, 2006
in Business Social.
The most popular bargain hunting forum has had a hard time last week when its users revolted over the change announced by the company to the way they calculate deal rating when people vote for the deal on the forum. The change was to remove “negative voting” which according to FatWallet “was often abused and rarely contributes” to a new approach where users could only “boost” (give positive vote to) a deal. Guess what? It produced an uproar and users exodus to the main competitor and forced FatWallet to roll back the changes.
SlickDeals uses a similar voting system but compared to FatWallet it is more user centered. If you are a part of SlickDeals community you usually give users “reputation points” for the good deal they post rather than “give green” to a deal posting (as FatWallet’ers reffer to the positive vote). Yet this reputation based voting system seems to be the cornerstone of the SlickDeals forums community. Users as they gain reputation get certain profile attributes and other perks such as ability to give negative reputation to other users and access to closed areas of the forum.
The idea of voting has been so successful that such newcomers as dealspl.us, dealplumber.com, and dealspy.org have based their entire sites around it and others are eager to catch on. They have certainly learned the lesson from digg.com success!
