Mitch101
Senior member
Originally posted by: HomeAppraiser
Not to mention that GottaDeal site
That site sucks. Might as well post retail as a deal.
Originally posted by: HomeAppraiser
Not to mention that GottaDeal site
Originally posted by: Grandmoph
Good decision!
Originally posted by: blckgrffn
Wow, I never even realized that this was a "major" deal site. Crazy.
Nat
Originally posted by: BrianC
Too little too late... when the coupons were originally banned, the great exodus literally created the chubby billfold site, which is now the defacto standard. I'm sure with all the referrals they're pulling in that it was a costly mistake.
Originally posted by: Mitch101
Originally posted by: HomeAppraiser
Not to mention that GottaDeal site
That site sucks. Might as well post retail as a deal.
Originally posted by: iluvdeal
Originally posted by: BrianC
Too little too late... when the coupons were originally banned, the great exodus literally created the chubby billfold site, which is now the defacto standard. I'm sure with all the referrals they're pulling in that it was a costly mistake.
Yea I've been around long enough to remember when AT Hot Deals forum was the leader in hot deals on the internet. There are a bunch of deal sites now, but the AT Hot Deals forum was the pioneer back then. Postings in hot deals dwarfed that of any other subject on the AT forums.
The banning of coupons when Staples threatened litigation against AT really was the death blow to its lead in popularity in deals. I was really disappointed to see AT fold like that due to the complaint of one store.
After that happened, a lot of folks moved to FW and the rest is history. I know AT is doing well, but they walked away from a lot of money by giving away their leadership in this area.
I'm glad this rule was finally been overturned but with all the other deal sites out there already allowing coupons for years, all I can think is it's about time.
That's not actually how it went.Originally posted by: Inspector Jihad
Originally posted by: iluvdeal
Originally posted by: BrianC
Too little too late... when the coupons were originally banned, the great exodus literally created the chubby billfold site, which is now the defacto standard. I'm sure with all the referrals they're pulling in that it was a costly mistake.
Yea I've been around long enough to remember when AT Hot Deals forum was the leader in hot deals on the internet. There are a bunch of deal sites now, but the AT Hot Deals forum was the pioneer back then. Postings in hot deals dwarfed that of any other subject on the AT forums.
The banning of coupons when Staples threatened litigation against AT really was the death blow to its lead in popularity in deals. I was really disappointed to see AT fold like that due to the complaint of one store.
After that happened, a lot of folks moved to FW and the rest is history. I know AT is doing well, but they walked away from a lot of money by giving away their leadership in this area.
I'm glad this rule was finally been overturned but with all the other deal sites out there already allowing coupons for years, all I can think is it's about time.
damn, i didn't know that.
Originally posted by: DerekWilson
That's not actually how it went.
We didn't fold to Staples -- AnandTech was never worried about legal issues wrt the forums, and we still are not. The author is legally responsible for their post, not the forum.
Yes, Staples had a problem with coupon codes, but that was their problem, not ours.
Posting coupons and codes was not allowed for other reasons and was decided at the forum admin level, not the AnandTech, Inc. level.
Originally posted by: BrianC
The Hot Deals forum took off as the central site for deals. For a few years, every single deal site revolved around the Anandtech Hot Deals world. There were no other deal forums with 1/10th the traffic of the Anandtech Hot Deals forum. Then came the [disputed] issue with the coupon codes and they became banned. There was public unhappiness and essentially a revolt occurred. For the next month, several sites popped up out of nowhere to try to take the unhappy traffic. It wasn't until Tim of FW created a site with the same FuseTalk forum software did the revolters find a home. Tim took a fight till the end attitude towards legal challenges and won out at the end.
In terms of Hot Deals, Anandtech was the pinnacle at its time. The exodus literally created multiple other sites that are now popular today. A number of these other sites wouldn't even exist if the coupon codes were never pulled at Anandtech to begin with.