Woot, frequent denizen of Consumerist’s Morning Deals, just got bought by Amazon, frequent purveyor of nearly everything imaginable.
“Woot HQ will remain in Carrollton, Texas, and will operate as autonomously as other Amazon companies like Zappos and Audible,” the one-deal-a-day pioneer announced on its blog this afternoon.
What will this mean for Woot fans? Will the site finally carry black iPod headphones? It’s too early to tell. But if Woot CEO Matt Rutledge’s acquisition letter, possibly the greatest acquisition letter in the history of acquisition letters, is any indication, things should continue in all their flashing light and monkey-filled glory.
BREAKING: Woot To Be Acquired By Amazon, Then Left To Amuse Ourselves [Woot] (Thanks to Git Em Steve Dave!)
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April Fools!
I hope.
First thing I thought when I read this too.. “Someone please tell me we time-warped back to April 1st”..
If we did, there would be another BoC on sale!
It’s true. Woot employees are talking about it, and they sound excited. I think it’s a good thing.
Nope. My friend who’s a Woot employee is headed from St Louis to Seattle – his first day is August 2.
Not sure I approve of this…
NOTE TO AMAZON:
Please be kind to my beloved WOOT, I love them just they way they are….except then they go on a Roomba sales spree, that drives me bonkers. If you want my blessing I better see more ‘random bags of crap’ (if you don’t know woot understand those are a GOOD thing) and have them not sell out in the first 5 seconds past 1am….
Like any good MMORPG, increasing the drop rate reduces it’s value.
The things should be rare, but if you didn’t get one because the server was down it’s BS.
I’ve wasted too many wootoffs on BoCs. I no longer care. After the third time you actually catch it change to BoC in real time, and you’re logged in, and you’re on three or four browsers, and you STILL don’t get it … no. Fuck those guys.
(Note to Amazon: I didn’t say “fuck with those guys.” Leave them alone.)
Perhaps Amazon can help them offer a BOC without all the crashing, pain and heartache. I just look at the BOC like a beautiful woman walking down the street: I can look, and imagine what it would be like to be with her, but the chances of actually hooking up with her are so miniscule as to be a waste of my time to worry about it.
As long as they treat it like Zappos, I have no complaints. Zappos has continued to be 5000% awesome, even after being mounted over Jeff Bezos’ fireplace.
Or, you know, … they could treat it like “CDNow”.
That is: Buy it. Dissolve it. Pretend like it never existed.
CDNow was dead long before Amazon took it under it’s wing. They simply gave it a burial.
Yup. Really Amazon is a great company. I hope they leave the woot guys to their own devices.
This makes me sad. I love woot as it as… well, as it was….
Yeah. My first reaction was “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”!
You know they bought Zappos right? And Zappos is still pretty amazing.
Yep, let’s hope things stay amazing with woot.
Maybe this means that Woot will have an even bigger selection of remaindered/overstocked items that they can sell? It seems like that even with Amazon’s promises of leaving them alone, there are bound to be *some* changes. Please let them be minimal!
Actually, you bring up an interesting point.
I too love my woot, and hope Amazon takes the Zappos route with them. However, the one improvement they may be able to make would be to open up the Amazon overstock/remaindered warehouse items to woot’s inventory picking staff. That could turn out to be pretty dang awesome!
let’s hope this is the case. When I first read the headline, my inner skeptic assumed it would just be business as usual at Amazon, only every item with a crossed out, red price would be labeled “woot!” crossing my fingers that it’s not that pathetic.
Hopefully they’ll get some awesome Amazon servers and redundancy to survive a BOC
Is it that bad? I got my two the other day during the woot!-off…
During a Woot-Off, if I reload and the page takes longer than 5 seconds to load, I know the jig is up.
I don’t think I’ve ever got any non-raw-text-error-message response when I click the “I want one” button. Damn tubes of internet.
This latest wootoff, I got as far as the final confirmation before being rejected… I wasn’t able to watch it closely enough though, work was busy at that particular moment.
Srsly, SteveDave I dunno how you do it but I still haven’t managed to get one.
First, I make sure I am logged in to woot!. I also use LastPass to fill in certain things, like my Paypal password, and memorize my 3 digit credit card code.
Then, I keep woot open on three of my computers(two of which I monitor over VNC). I also use a site that “auto-buys” when a BOC comes up. 7 times out of 10, at least one of the computers gets to the buy page, and I just hit confirm or enter my code and hit confirm. Then I hit buy and hope I made it. I don’t hit the back button or anything, I just let it take it’s course.
I’ve lost out due to being away from the computer like in the bathroom and by the time I hit buy, it’s sold out, or having an expired card as my Paypal back-up. Sometimes I wasn’t even around, and when I come home, I see the buy screen just mocking me telling me I missed.
Your putting WAYYY to much work into geting a “Bag o’ Crap”.
Not really. It’s nothing to keep 2 vnc windows open, and to remember 3 numbers. The payoff could be a 60″ tv. Or a pallet of action figures! It’s happened!
After years of trying, I’ve scored their BoC the last two woot-offs in a row. I only have one browser window open, I don’t use any automated purchasing program, and I don’t sit and watch woot (so a good portion of my luck is just that — luck). I agree with being logged in already, but I use a credit card stored with them instead of PayPal (saves on the number of steps) and knowing my CCV.
And honestly — they really aren’t worth the effort. My last one was a dead hard drive, two containers of seasoning, an HP optical mouse, and a wine sack.
it does happen! I was one of the lucky ones in the last May BOC- scored a 37″ HDTV and some DVD players. And even if you don’t take home a big haul. it’s always at least 8 bucks worth of fun.
And the woot-off BOCs are easier, since you don’t have everyone logging on knowing exactly what time the next item will show. The last two I got were both April Fool’s ones, since I knew it was coming. Lately those are complicated enough to fool the cheaters that use the auto-buy sites.
With this acquisition, will woot! finally offer black iPod headphones?
I never understand these posts.
Its because someone bought a black ipod from woot that came with white ipod headphones (the only kind of headphones apple sends with ipods…)
they expected since the ipod was black, the headphones will also be black so they complained + woot wrote a whole story about it, along with other stuff on the site.
read the link dood
Yeah.. They went their.
How long has it been since Amazon bought Zappos? ‘Cause Zappos still rocks!
Huge fan of Woot, so really hoping this doesn’t affect their service at all…
I really hope this means we can shop woot and have shipping to Canada land. We can’t woot here in the Great White North.
Maybe the servers will stay up when the Random Crap appears!
I must admit though, it would be nice if they combined an Amazon Prime Membership in with Woot and provided free shipping and/or a free upgrade to 2nd day air (if you have a Prime account).
Also, the letter that Matt Rutledge (Woots CEO) sent to all the Woot employees was funny.
(And Snarky, as Woot usually is). 
http://www.woot.com/Blog
The letter from their CEO is pretty awesome: http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=13390
I personally think it’s all a ploy by Woot so they can gain access to, and subsequently raid, the Amazon warehouses in order to make the best Woot Offs/Bags O’ Crap ever.
Here is hoping eh? I do love my Woot so very much. Please don’t change it Amazon, especially shirt Woot!. My kids would be devastated without their weekly dose of sarcastic/funny/provocative shirts.
I think you have it backwards. This is probably a ploy by Amazon to unload stuff they can’t sell. Amazon can now up buy orders on goods, allowing them to reduce prices even more, and anything left send to Carrollton for Wootification.
Kinda like if Ikea bought Big Lots.
Here is the direct link to the “memo”…
http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=13390
I hope they don’t end up in the same grave yard as http://www.jellyfish.com post acquisition.
Holy crap
Best part of the CEO’s email:
“They’re not looking to have their folks come in and run Woot unless we ask them to, which incidentally you can do by turning off the bathroom lights and saying the word “Kindle†three times; a helpful Amazon employee will appear in the mirror.”
This can only end in tears . . .
. . . of joy!
Wait, Woot’s headquarters are in Carrollton?
Ha! Ha ha ha ha ha! That’s great.
I like much about Woot EXCEPT their shipping. It frequently takes 4 or 5 days to get something out the door, and then it comes by by FedEx “Smartpost”, perhaps the slowest, least efficient shipping service available.
If amazon does nothing more than improve order handling and and delivery, that will be fantastic.
Well Amazon probably does have a (better) relationship (and probably better prices) with the shipping companies than Woot does, simply because of the volume of parcels that Amazon ships on a daily basis — so it WOULD be nice if Woot is somehow able to take advantage of that relationship, even perhaps going as far as to offer free shipping (and/or free upgrade to 2nd day air) as part of the PRIME membership.
Guess only time will tell on that one though.
I hope Amazon got a good deal.
But will shipping kill the deal?
If this means the death knell for Smart Post as their preferred shipper is sounding, then I stand squarely behind it.
Oh, gee, I can’t wait to be informed of the GREAT KINDLE DEALS available. Actually, I can wait. Forever.
*removes Woot from bookmarks, as TAPS plays in the background*
Not waiting to see if the type of offers actually change? That’s like salting food before tasting it. Well, more for the rest of us, so thanks!
I had to check to make sure that he didn’t post this after midnight.. Since he didn’t, I can only assume that he’s psychic or something.
Todays Woot?
“Amazon Kindle Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)” – $149.99
I’m SURE it’s just a coincidence.
No, really. They’ll probably won’t sell another for 6 months to a year, at least.
As long as they don’t change a thing, and allow w00t to operate with complete autonomy (aside from Amazon’s greater buying power) it’ll be OK.
Dammit.
Maybe with the extra money that Amazon is throwing around we’ll see a Woot Canada in the future?
And to celebrate…. today’s Woot! is an Amazon Kindle priced at $149.99.
And of course today they have a kindle on woot.
SHipping takes a few days? WHo cares. Dirt cheap prices and you can’t wait a few days?
Get a life!
Good for Woot! I love that site.
There was a new Kindle on Woot today for $149. Change is sometimes good lol