Re: Black Friday Threads & Related Information
 

Have you guys considered organizing with other deal websites to fight this kind of corporate intimidation? I believe fatwallet.com filed suit last year, but by the time they got their day in court Black Friday was long past and so the judge decided the case was moot and dismissed it.

It seem so to me that it is in dvdtalk's best interest to end such intimidation tactics because until then, the risk that some corporate muckity-muck decides some other deal disclosure made in the deals forum was pissing in his wheaties and decides to threaten you with the DMCA. After all it worked once and it only cost a letter's worth of lawyer time.

Personally IMO it reflects the site for last year or so.

I can understand where the owner of the site is
doing/going with this. It really does no
good to mull over the ads for weeks & weeks.
Ads a day or 2 early is all we really we need here.

Respect is another. 1 year plus now without
going thru any referal links here.

Long live jblackland you have been missed.

It's best not to fight it. It's way to close to even get some resolution and the amount of high priced lawyers they have is lame to even consider fighting.

The man: 1
website: 0

I disagree, the ability to post deals is one of the things that makes DVDtalk a popular web site, so allowing companies to bully you into what you can and cant say about "deals" at their store. Is a big deal and if DVDtalk lets themselves be pushed here there is no reason to think the stores might push other times.

I completely disagree about long-term mulling of deal pricing, I would prefer to know about any sale pricing as far in advance as possible that way I am able to better evaluate any other interim sale pricing on the same or similar items in the context of the future sale. Which is exactly why the stores want to keep the information a secret, they would rather we be suckers and overpay today.

Information is power, give it to your friends for free but resist anyone who wants to take it away from you.

To be fair, no one is forcing you to buy anything today. Traditionally, the price of DVDs and video games go down over time. If you're willing to pay a certain price for something now, then go for it. If not, then wait, and it'll probably go down.

Also, them keeping prices a secret isn't just about getting the most money out of the consumer. They're also worried about getting "outbargained" by other chains.

Bummer about the Black Friday policy. Was DVDTalk sued last year? With the demise of best price threads and now no Black Friday threads, there is little reason to go to the Bargains forum any longer.

I never did understand/"get the reason" for that ban.

It primarily had to do with his signing up with a second account and using it to deceive members and promote his original self.

Black friday is a special time since, as static mentioned, they are more worried about being out priced ahead of time. So keeping the info is high prioirty and it's understandable that it is.

If this is the case, then they need to be more careful with the information. Like anything, CDs, movie scripts, etc., if you're not careful, it's going to end up on the internet. Black Friday has become so weak in terms of actual deals the last few years I'm not sure why anyone cares anyways. I think the stores are worried that their ads will break early only because of the fact that it will cause more people to sleep in.

Pricing, especially competitive pricing on a very special shopping day, is proprietary information, much like secret formulas and recipes and release dates and things.
Last year [or the year before] at first I was on the "No way, share the prices!" But after thinking about it, i agreed with it. Many companies have NDA-type agreements for 'proprietary information', including mine for instance. I can't talk about specific pricing or features or anything about what we make unless
* I have a job that includes that, and the education/training about the issues;
* I am discussing it with a person who has a 'need to know'.
In other words, a salesman could certainly discuss pricing and features of a current product with the head of a facility who's looking to buy; but he couldn't necessarily talk about the new features of an upcoming product.

Pricing information, especially Black Friday type pricing, would definitely fall into that category.

I do agree, they need to try to be more careful with the information, but like you say, almost everything winds up on the internet early/soon anyway, so I'm not sure what they can do that they're not already doing.

So.. if a companies CD, Script or Movie leaks, they do not have the right to request that the person posting, hosting or harboring said item remove it at once? It's in their legal means and just because some folks bypass it somehow, doesn't justify it by any means.

If you feel that way, fine. You have the ablity to feel whatever you want towards the sales, but they do still maintain the right to want to keep them private.

You make a good point Jackskeleton. My analogy doesn't really ring true. When it comes to music, when an entire Cd is leaked to the internet, such as the new U2 lp, it "could" possibly hurt sales of that album. Sames goes with movies. On the other hand, black friday ads are just information. Ironically, information that the companies want us to have. They just want to dictate when we have it.

If your deals are good, why not just let it ride. In the long run, they should just be happy that we are spending hours and hours talking about them on the internet. Bottom line, the more we discuss the deals here, the more of us will be informed and will show up bright and early friday morning.

I would still argue that part of their reasoning is the lack of good deals. I would be surprised if any one store really blew us away with good deals. If anything, I will go to one store and make all my purchases there. Am I really going to drive to ten miles out of my way to Best Buy to buy the Star Wars trilogy for $33.99 when Circuit City has it for $35.99. Would I make that trip to save two bucks? No. Would I make that trip if Best Buy were selling the trilogy for $19.99. I sure would. If we know in advance the deals just aren't that impressive, we wont bother.

I guess I just find it kind of silly that a company would possibly take legal action against a website just so that a couple of hundred people on a DVD website can't see their ad early. I still like to think of this website as kind of "underground". I guess the reality of the matter is DVDTalk is just another business like Best Buy and needs to follow "the rules".

My $0.02

Simple, because the deal is as low as they are willing to go. If another store wants to play hardball and take that deal and lower it some, then they will have to turn around and lower their price eating profit to even compete with keeping the same amount of shoppers. When does this vicious cycle end? This is why they want them to remain a secret as long as possible.

It spans more than a couple hundred people on a website. Lets take the fat wallet effect here. Site X post up a free deal or loop hole. within minutes that deal is posted in various differen't forums because it's members are memebrs in other places. This news travels to more people. they tell ten people or so and those ten tell another ten each and those ten tell another ten... You get the idea. Word spreads fast on the internet. It's not a matter of keeping it away from a few hundred, more like a few million.

And DVDTALK is another business like Best Boy. They want to gain ad space filled and they get a commission off sales of dvds linked from the site. It is here to help us be informed consumers. But more importantly, it's here to make a buck. If a company is going to go after it because of that, they do realize how to pick their fights.

You hit the nail on the head. DVDTalk is a business.

What I want this website to be and what it is are two different things.

That being said, I still think that the postives associated with allowing us to discuss the black friday deals still vastly outweigh the negatives. As you said:

Since the deals are typically very similiar to begin with I would see this as a good thing. Inevitably causing more traffic at the B&Ms where the ads show up online. Those few million are people looking for deals. Let's give them that information so they can spend their hard-earned $$$.

I don't really buy that someone from Store A is going to read DVDTalk, find out what Store B's deals are, report back to headquarters, and then adjust their own already carefully calculated deals. Especially this close to the "big day".

As earlier posters have mentioned, I think the major issue here is bowing down to corporate pressure. My feeling is that it hurts our little community and makes the forums less desirable. But this is not my call to make.

Regardless, I'm not trying to be overly critical of DVDTalk. Just bitchin' for the sake of bitchin'. I still love this place. What else am I gonna do at work all day? :)

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