Sure, CES is filled with plenty of glitz and glam, but what about the rest of the show? It can’t all be the best of the best; can it?
Short answer: No.
Thankfully, Woot is here to save the day by filling that void with The Wootable Awards.
What are the Wootable Awards?
A collection of what people at CES “wind up seeing instead of the wondergadgets they’ve been dreaming of.”
From the Least Impressive Laptop to the Cheapest Exploitation of Patriotism, it’s a collection of the best of the worst, and it’s sure to paint a different picture of CES than what you had imagined.
Are you ready to be blown away by CES 2009?
Woot sure is.
[Woot - The Wootable Awards]
Today is one of the Internet’s favorite holidays. Though I’m not going to try and trick any of the DYH readers (I promise), I am going to be covering the hoaxes and pranks that appear around the net. Here are some of the better ones:
Google announced Gmail Paper, a permanent archive service that prints your emails for free onto paper that is supported by giant ads that are printed on the back. It handles attachments, is good for the environment, and there is no limit on the number of times you can use it.
Google announced TiSP, a free in-home wireless broadband service that taps into your toilet. The service is supported by the use of “information gathered by discreet DNA sequencing of your personal bodily output to display online ads that are contextually relevant to your culinary preferences, current health status and likelihood of developing particular medical conditions going forward”.
Woot sold a $1,000,001 bag of crap. When users clicked on the picture of the bag, they were given a coupon code that knocked the cost down to $1.
Tech Crunch, a site that focuses on Web 2.0 startups, announced that it had acquired Fucked Company, a site that focuses on Web 2.0 shutdowns.
ThinkGeek announced “stuff for smart asses”, including a WiiHelm(et), an 8-bit tie, inhalable caffeine stix, and a lonely guy dream vacation digital photo frame. (They also announced that the iPhone was now shipping, but that’s just cruel.)
CollegeHumor made it look as if their domain had expired and was now for sale through GoDaddy.
Technorati switched around their letters and renamed their site haterTonic.
World Of Warcraft introduced a new item called the Tinfoil Hat. “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you”.
CrunchGear gave their entire site a 1999 redesign, complete with flashy gifs, a horrible background, and a no structure (though it still reminds me of a lot of current MySpace profile pages).
[Wikipedia - April Fools' Day]
Jellyfish offers a unique way to buy products called Smack Shopping. Each day, a variety of items (usually tech related, but sometimes it’s anything goes) are sold in a type of Dutch auction where the price starts out at retail and continues to drop until the limited number of items for sale sell out. The drawback is that you pay the full amount, and then after 60 days Jellyfish cuts you a check for the amount of savings you bought in at, so it takes a while to receive your savings. The upside is that you can usually get some pretty good deals on items that usually don’t go on sale, such as iPods, PS3s, XBOX 360s, MacBooks, etc. I’ve actually used the service myself, and saved 37.31% ($130.21) on a brand new 80GB iPod, so I can definitely attest to the fact that the service worked. A brand new iPod arrived at my door shortly after the purchase, and I received a check for the cash back amount after waiting through the required wait period. If you don’t want to purchase that day’s Smacks, you can also try to guess the final amount of savings and earn points towards a Smack Piggyback where you can buy one product at the top discount after the Smack has finished. If you’re looking to score some great deals, or if you’re a fan of sites like Woot! And macZOT!, then definitely give Jellyfish a shot, you never know what you’re going to find.
[Jellyfish: Smack Shopping]
[Wikipedia - Winner's Curse]
[Wikipedia - Dutch Auction]
Woot managed to sell 80 20gb PS3s in four and a half minutes by mocking the PS3 and admitting that they were selling the PS3s to pay for Wiis. If you clicked on the PS3, you were even treated to a not so subliminal message spelled out in boxes of PS3s. How bad was the mocking?
So, hey, check it out: there’s this awesome new gaming system that we just can’t stop playing. Too bad it’s so hard to find in stores – we guess they just didn’t make enough of them. It’s called the Nintendo Wii, and holy mother of Zelda, is it ever a blast. If the Wii is cool with polygamy, we might ask it to marry us.
The controller – so easy! No more intricate push-this-twice, pull-that-three-times trickery, just easy waves of the hand. The console – so cute! It actually makes our gaming room look better, unlike the bulky, ugly consoles we could mention. How does Nintendo keep the price so low on that thing, anyway? And the games, good Lord, the games! Not to mention those adorable avatars. We’ve already created virtual versions of the entire staff, so we can beat each other virtually-bloody instead of actually-bloody, like we usually do. The only problem is that none of the nose options are as big as Jason’s actual nose. But that’s a minor quibble.
In fact, we love the Wii so much, we want to give a Wii to everybody on our payroll. To fund this Wii-for-the-People program, we’re selling this Sony PlayStation 3. The SIXAXIS wireless controller is basically the same complicated gazillion-button-style controller you know from past PS models, but at least you won’t be fighting Grandma for gaming time. Along with the usual roster of ho-hum games, the PS3 can play CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray discs, and the 20GB hard drive can store music, videos, and music videos. It’s certainly, er, rather full-figured, for those of you who want a lot of heft for your money. And its HDMI capabilities give you polygons and frames-per-second out the wazoo, if you prefer that stuff to having fun.
Best of all, for every PS3 you buy, we can buy Wiis for two of our employees. So when you get frustrated by those intricate combo-button moves, or bored by the underwhelming game offerings for the PS3, keep the spirit of the season in mind. Remember all those happy Woot staffers whose lives have been changed by their super-fun Nintendo Wiis, paid for by you. Heartwarming, isn’t it?
I’d say it’s a pretty good explanation of the difference between the two systems, and why I think that Sony’s system is going to be about as long lasting as MiniDisks were unless they can figure out how to make it cheaper. Wii.
[Woot!]
[Wikipedia - MiniDisc]
[VIa: Kotaku]
