Quickest Measure Of Gustav's Negative Economic Impact: Woots Per Capita
UPDATE: Prompted by this post, Woot did their own post analyzing their internal data much more thoroughly.
It will take some time for the economic impact of Hurricane Gustav on New Orleans to be calculated, unless the journalist or statistician in question is a fan of daily gadget deal site Woot! As part of the forums area, the site throws out various data, like how many units did people buy, percentage of sales per hour, and a Woots per capita map. The map clearly shows that basically no one in Louisiana is buying jack from Woot right now, and, no doubt, from any else. How will we know when people have returned to Louisiana and are buying again? By watching the delta on the Woots per capita map!
This is a test contextual ad for the SHOPPING category. It should appear on all SHOPPING entries, unless the subcategory has its own ad.
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Comments:
@numindast: If you're living out of a hotel room, you'd want it sent there, not to your flooded house.
Duh.
What's going on with Utah? They're wooting away like nothing's happened.
Typo! Gustav...don't worry, CNN had Hurricane "Gustave" all over their screen yesterday
Louisiana quit wooting and Montana/Nevada started
Shouldn't there be some measure of essential, popular and mainstream types goods/services?
I'm thinking "porn", of course.
August 2nd was a Saturday. Louisiana was also black on August 4th (the first work day after the weekend, like today): [www.woot.com]
I bet they would conjure up some internet for a woot-off/BoC
Alaska's showing a severe Woot deficit as well - one that appears to be completely impervious to the improved political prospects of its governor.
Today was a awesome Woot too.
I'm surprised more people didn't jump on it.
I live in Utah...... cant explain the map though...
Wootah?
Hmm... a $300 generator aVS. 6 buck microSD card.
The comparison seems flawed.
You need to compare a 2 for Tuesday against a 2 for Tuesday
To be fair, I only have one of the three fancy internet machines in my state (WY).
I bought 3 sets of the MicrosSD cards today, my first w00t. It wasn't just a 6.50 microsd card, it was 2 of them. So it was a 2GB MicroSD for 3.25. So, that's why it's lit up thru the rest of the country.
See, if they'd only had the $300 Generator instead of the MicrosSD card... I bet they'd have made a killing in the Gulf states.
I recently stole one of the other two for myself. However 5 of my bison died in the last freeze so my gen-ur-atah isn't workin so well. I'm averagin 30 1's and 0's a month, making wootin and hollerin a much harder task
@dougyfresh: Thats the way it goes sometimes. Mine is some sort of appletosh and if we have another cold morning like the one we had today I'm afraid it'll freeze right up and I won't get that many 0's and 1's myself this spring.
yesterday was also random shirt day on shirt woot, i got myself 3 for 6.66 each.
*crosses fingers for non crappy shirts*
@aristan:
Speaking of gulf states, why is the area referred to as "watching the delta?"
I thought it was a gulf.
Option A: Buy MicroSD cards
Option B: Buy water since you don't know if it's safe to drink down there...
Which option do you think most people will be choosing? Besides, power was (is?) probably still out for a bunch of people, meaning they couldn't get online (and if they're in a shelter, they probably don't have internet access either).
This is an indicator of online purchases at best, not an indicator of the economic impact of the hurricane.
@Tallanvor: Not only power, but if the cable lines and phone lines are down, there's no access either, unless you have a cell modem, but I'm sure everyone's cell net is seriously bogged down from everyone using their phones.
@ClickClickThud: As far as I could tell from the way WOOT! generates the graphic (using a Google widget), they don't include any data for Hawai'i or Alaska. This could of course mean that the data point for Alaska and Hawai'i is Zero, or that they don't ship there (or of course, both).
What the chart says to me is that with LA offline, it gives other states, e.g., GA, NV, CO, MT, MS, et al., a chance to buy something from Woot!.
What it also says, and confirms my suspicion, that WV and MS don't have Internet.
Some of us Louisianans are wooting, just in Florida.
This does not take into account the quality (or lack thereof) of the Woot product for that day. Worthless.
nineRED: it doesn't have to. The color-coding indicates Woot activity relative to other states. So unless the day's item was, say, a USB crawfish boiler, there's no reason the item itself should affect how much Louisianans purchase it compared to consumers in other states.
@lemortede: Me either. I've never heard of woot.com. The economy here has been good except for the high gas prices.
@thisisasignin: The reference to the delta is in regards to the Mississippi River delta, I'm pretty sure. The river delta is a pretty important part of trade around here.
"It will take some time for the economic impact of Hurricane Gustav on New Orleans to be calculated..."
OK, I'm sorry to nit-pick here, but N.O. isn't the center of the universe here in LA. I'm not trying to put down the people of N.O. here, especially since I have relatives from there, but it's not the only place affected by hurricanes. Gustav did some pretty major damage to many of the towns in south-central LA (not to be confused with south-central L.A. :P), especially after the storm passed and some tornadoes started popping up. Sorry for saying all this...it just gets a little under my skin when N.O. is always mentioned, but nowhere else.
On topic, much of southern part of the state was without power, so it kind of explains the drop in wooting. But like some of the folks above said, if they'd be selling inexpensive generators (and where the heck can I get that USB crawfish boiler?) then it'd be a much different story.
Duh. If you are living out of a hotel room or a relative's living room, you don't exactly have a lot of spare cash.
Duh.