Cyber Monday a Cyber letdown...

So in recent years, the Monday after Thanksgiving has been tagged "Cyber Monday", as it is supposed to be one of the largest online shopping days of the year. People go to work on the Monday after Black Friday, and use their internet connections at work to do a bunch of their Christmas shopping.

This year, a bunch of online stores have been hyping the Cyber Monday idea, having one-day sales for Cyber Monday.

From what I've seen, they were a letdown.

I did make two purchases. ClubIT had a 4 gig USB flash drive for $5AR with free shipping, so I jumped on that. And Amazon had a Logitech Revolution VX cordless notebook laser mouse for $7AR, free shipping.

But I didn't see any other good deals. OK, I saw one I didn't get in on. Zip Zoom Fly, which I was already annoyed at for advertising several nice FAR items that were priced far higher than they were supposed to be on Black Friday (they did fix the price - and then they sold out before I noticed) had a FAR TV tuner card - something I could actually use, as I've been looking to set up another HTPC. The sale started at 12am pacific, 3am eastern. Woke up at around 4:30 - probably due to the cat - and it was already sold out.

I did briefly consider buying the $25AR usb notebook hard drive from staples.com, but decided against it - it was a manufacturer's rebate, and IOMagic is HORRIBLE with rebates - they will actually list your status as "you should have received a check by now" - and if you email them, it magically changes to check mailed and shows a check number, and then you get your check. Total scam.

In the past, Black Friday was a great chance to get deals, but in recent years it's become more hype than reality (and it seems like some of the good deals have moved online). Cyber Monday for the most part seems to just be hype - lots of stores ran ads with the Cyber Monday tag line, but few had any good deals worth jumping on.