I double clicked my Wootalyzer shortly after 1:00 am and the alarms began to sound.  Alert! Alert!  Breakout the Christmas lists and see who needs a gift.  Specifically, who needs a Valet 9104 4-Sensor Tire Pressure Monitoring System with Display for $59.99,  which sells elsewhere for $208.00.  Nobody?  Damn, no woot! for me.

For those of you who have no idea what Woot!, Woot-offs, and Wootalyzers are, I will explain.  http://www.woot.com/ is an online store and community that sells one item per day, this item is called a “woot!”.  The cost of the daily item is usually much less than anywhere else on the net, including E-bay.  You can buy a maximum quantity of 3 for each deal.  Shipping is almost always $5.00.  Once the daily item is sold out, that’s it.  No more.  You can see the amount of items left by watching the orange status bar below the featured item.  Recently woot! partnered with Yahoo! to bring us the “deal of the day” at shopping.yahoo.com.  They also feature a t-shirt a day shirt.woot.com, and a bottle of wine a day wine.woot.com.  The deal is changed every night at 1:00 am Eastern time, so before going to bed I always check.  You never know, there might even be Woot-off. 

Woot-off?  Somebody say woot-off? Why yes, don’t you see the flashing warning lights, the creepy Woot! podcast song, and over 1000 comments discussing the current product?  A woot-off is like Black Friday without warning.  All the leftover items from previous woots are now sold at give-away prices to clean out the inventory.  It happens every few months, and people go wild.  They stay home from school, call in sick to work, and often stay up all night just to hit that F5 key and refresh their browser.  Good items go fast, so you have to be ready to purchase at a moments notice.  Not to mention the woot-off could end at any time.

What the hell is an Excalibur BrewMaster, and do I need one for $0.99?  Columbia 5-Mile Handheld 2-way Radio 2-Pack for $14.99? Bring me the BOC!  Boc? Yes, the BOC stands for “bag of crap” and it’s the holy grail for followers of woot!.  Forum members like to come up with cute alternatives for the BOC like “Bandoleer of Carrots” or “Blinged out Cabbage”.  It’s a special mystery deal for $1.00 plus shipping.  In it you might receive anything from junk, to a radar detector, to a plasma TV, you never know. 

The community forums are where all the customers hang out between deals.  They like to review the deal, compare prices to Amazon.com and E-bay, and post silly pictures complaining about not seeing the item they want for sale.  Pretty much just an excuse to kill time and use up all their nervous energy and creativity.  Real questions about the product are answered there as well, so things can get a bit crazy.

My own experience with woot! has been very positive.  Last woot-off I purchased a new pair of headphones for dirt cheap.  They arrived promptly in excellent condition, in an unopened package.  I paid $25.00 for them, $40.00 less than the exact same item offered on buy.com.  Even if I don’t buy, just seeing such good deals makes me happy.  Announcing each new deal is a great way to annoy your spouse.  

For those who have better things to do with their time, like blog, there is always the wootalyzer from www.wootalyzer.com.  This is a gadget that goes to woot! and other one sale a day sites and checks for the latest deal.  If a woot-off it occurring, it plays an alarm.  Beats hitting the F5 key all night.  If you like the deal, a button brings you right to woot’s homepage.