Traditionalists might balk, but the holiday shopping season is already underway. Skeptical? Head to your local department store and you'll be inundated by Christmas trees and ornaments. Bargain hunters, though, know that the real deals are more than a month away.
Black Friday, traditionally, is when retailers truly slash prices. Early birds can save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars off of their holiday bills. Switched.com checked with a few elves, who gave a sneak peek at what you can expect deal-wise this year.
Blu-ray Players and Movies: Blu-ray is shaping up to be the biggest door buster of this year's Black Friday. de Grandpre expects at least one retailer will offer a Blu-ray player for just $49. Look for bargains on Blu-ray films as well, with last year's hit titles (such as "Iron Man") to fall as low as $5.
Laptops: With the proliferation of Netbooks this year, it's never been easier to find affordable portable computing, but Dan de Grandpre, CEO of DealNews.com says it will get even cheaper on Black Friday. Look for well-equipped Netbooks to sell for $199 – and basic 15" laptops to go for as little as $249.
HDTVs (Pretty big): The holidays are typically the best time to buy a new TV – and Black Friday is the time to do it. If you're looking for a normal sized set, you're in luck. Piper Jaffrey analyst Mitch Kaiser says he expects to see 32-inch LCD sets for as low as $299. GottaDeal.com is estimating 37-inch plasma and LCD sets will fall to $399 or less.
HDTVs (Really big): Need something bigger? How about a 46-47 inch LCD set for $599 – a 25 percent savings? Or a 52-inch LCD for $999? Dealnews says you can expect both. Plasma deals will be a little harder to come by, but a 50-inch set should run roughly $899.
HD Camcorders: You've wanted to shoot your child's school play in HD for a while, but haven't been able to spring for the pricey camcorder. This might be the year. Low-end, flash-based 720p models could drop as low as $60 (though you won't be able to zoom with those). Expect a high quality 1080p HD camcorder for $349.
GPS: While navigation systems have dramatically expanded their reach this year – even making it onto the iPhone – there's still a market for car-based systems. Dealnews predicts you'll be able to find a no-name entry-level system for $49, while a Garmin or Tom-Tom brand will be as low as $69.
Digital Picture Frames: Showcasing your digital pictures consistently gets cheaper. This year, skip the 7-inch screens and focus on the 8- or 9-inch ones, which should be available on Black Friday for as little as $30.
Monitors: Computer monitors might not be the sexiest of gifts, but they're usually welcomed with open arms – and they'll be cheap this year. Name brand 22-inch LCD models may go for as low as $99, while 24-inch models will drop below $150.
Memory: Don't know anyone who needs a monitor? External hard drives are always popular, since they're an easy way to back-up data. Dealnews expects a 1TB drive to fall as low as $49 this year. Gottadeal is looking for 8GB flash drives to hit $15.
As the death-knell of e-mail begins to toll, many Web trackers have been inspired to explore the ramifications for the future of cyber communication. Two years ago, surveys revealed that many teens believed e-mail to be an aging Web dinosaur, as 80-percent of those polled had already turned their attention to social networking.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
tim said 7:26AM on 10-14-2009
Possibly one of the stupidest things I ever read.
Sure, the likes of Facebook and Twitter are impacting on some of the social messaging that might once have taken place by email, but that doesn't mean email's going to go anywhere. Email still has a unique place in most people's internet experience - it's the unique identifier that you use to sign up and get notifications from most of these services for example. It's also a generic technology - unlike social networks, nobody's going to pull the plug on email if the numbers are down, because nobody can - email doesn't have shareholders, and there's no Zuckerberg figure trying to make money out of it.
More than all that, business needs email, and no business is going to trust that traffic to a social network. Facebook can't kill email any more than the phone killed the post, or indeed email killed the post or the phone for that matter - there's a place for all these things. Just try sending a package by Twitter.
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Mike said 11:29AM on 10-14-2009
I completely agree with this tim. Stating that the "death-knell of e-mail begins to toll" seems to have been written only to attract readers.
Email is an absolute necessity these days: postage/payment confirmations, website sign-up details, banking, CV requests. I'd rather keep things private than posted to my now long-deactivated Facebook profile.
mslalagirl said 12:11AM on 10-16-2009
I agree emails are more personal than social networking. Myself will always have an emai addressl it is so convenient.
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steve said 11:50AM on 10-16-2009
The author, and apparently the WSJ, left out the impact - and in several ways the greater "immediacy" - allowed by text messaging.
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Tom O'Leary said 1:22PM on 10-16-2009
The subject of this post is a bit misleading. Young people are, without a doubt, using social media and mobile phones more for connecting to their friends, but email is still the go-to app for business and private communication. More importantly, email continues to dominate ROI with modest estimates at $47 per dollar spent. It is also easy to track.
Also, the stats for email users worldwide is completely off. "More people overall (301.5 million) now actively use sites like Facebook and Twitter than do e-mail services (276.9 million)"
In 2007, there were over 727 million business email users alone worldwide, and Ferris Research predicts that the number will grow to just under one billion by 2010.
See my post below
Generation Y Email?
http://www.messagingtimes.com/2007/07/27/generation-y-email/
Social networking and MMS communication are definitely the go-to apps for many in social circles. But for business and private communication, email is still 'the killer app'.
But sure, email has been pronounced 'dead' many times. Not too long ago, when RSS was touted as it's replacement. Email is dead. Long live email.
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