ATTN: Mods specifically Andywedge
A long time ago someone did a huge review of hukd, i think it included which deals were most popular, trends in different subforums etc.(it was like a dissertation, not a 6line review of the site) Andywedge showed me it but i dont know how to find it using google as way too many searches are found no matter what i type.... i would like to read it again do you mods remember it? if so then can u provide the link please. put it in feedback instead of pming one of you because others might like the read like gary_rip gari197 thesaint chesso syzable etc thanks Luke
All Comments (13)
Jump to unread Post a CommentSeriously though, I'd like to look at it too.
interesting info shrug if its what he was thinking of but damn Lucery's posts alot of deals :p
also the other way round sometimes, I've missed hyperlink's in a post as the link is very faint, would be handy if the link was automatically made bold or at least a different colour.
Edited By: richp on Sep 22, 2011 19:55
Mike
Posted 11. February 2009, 16:55 by Mike Molesworth comments (3)
Category : Home Learning & teaching developments
You might see this post as a bit of a summary. Or you might see it as a continuation of the sorts of ideas that came out of the seminars this week.
HotUKdeals is a forum to post ‘good deals’ and to just hang out and chat. The site claims to have almost 160,000 members and at any one time there might be nearly 10,000 users online, the majority of which are ‘guests’ (i.e., non-members). There have been over 4 million posts on the site over the last 5 years and in that time the site has grown rapidly.
So how might we understand HotUKdeals? I think this website can be used to understand many of the theoretical, cultural and marketing ideas that we have covered on the IMS/OPR course and that are widely discussed throughout this site. Here are some ways of making sense of HotUKdeals:-
1. The site is an example of an online community. We might seek to understand how the owners have constructed a space where users can experience ‘community’. Baym’s ideas might give us direction by highlighting the sort of ‘infrastructure’ from which community can emerge. For example consider the avatars, the reputation system, the ability to PM, the post count, the different sections, the ability to upload images in threads. How are these used in order to form individual and group identities on the site? What sorts of ‘spaces’ do they encourage? Recently the owners have added a ‘playful’ blog, although if you read it and the main forum you will note some resistance to this development. There is also a Twitter feed and a rather sad Facebook group. So we can see that the owners are exploring all sorts of online platforms. By the way, when you use the site it is never entirely clear who the owners are or what they do in the background. In this respect the site is like Facebook, Youtube, eBay etc. There are some hidden, god-like rulers that nobody ever sees and that seldom get questioned.
2. Or we might consider the roles adopted by members of the forum (stuff on identity might do some work in explaining these) and the types of discussion that take place. Kozinet’s ideas might help us to unpack that lot too. This is certainly an example of a virtual community of consumption. We might also note that there are frequent references to other forums, especially AVforums and MSE. We see that it has become more than a place to post deals. It has a thriving ‘misc’ section where ‘mingling’ happens and has regular ‘devotees’ and ‘insiders’ as well as large numbers of ‘tourists’. If you follow the site for a while you can even spot specific ‘site celebrities’, people that have high post counts and that everybody seems t know. So perhaps a detailed study could result in extensions to Kozinet’s tetrad.
3. We might also see the site as an example of a new information-based business model. We talked about those in the lecture on changes to the value system. HotUKdeals is a new intermediary and an example of an affiliate site. It is partnered with Quidco, an affiliate site that gives cash back on purchases. We might see these developments as examples of de-differentiation of consumer and producer, for example. The site is ‘user generated’ and therefore part of an apparent ‘participation culture’. We might also recognise that the site has grown ‘organically’. It has not really been advertised, but has benefited from strong listings on Google and from WOM. We could see this rapid growth as part of a diffusion curve and doing so invites us to think about why a site like this should be adopted as it has been.
4. We could also think about critical discuses related to this cultural phenomenon. For example we could consider governmentality, the nature of the construction of a ‘good deal’ (and therefore a good consumer) and the ways in which the rating system and reputation system discipline behaviour. We could also consider the site as the ‘exploitation’ of consumers’ labour as a source of profit for the owners. Here we might note that the affiliate fees are not transparent. A user might post a deal, but the site will make the profit from the success of that deal. Is this reasonable? This approach could be contrasted with a discourse that promotes such a site as an example of increased consumer power – on HotUKdeals no one can hear your TV money scream, for example. The users get to decide what the best deals are.
5. We might also consider the types of games played on the site (especially in the misc section), but what seems clear is that all sorts of factors contribute to a deal becoming hot. I suspect this includes some ‘imaginary’ consumption. I also wonder if the nature of deals posted could be some sort of barometer of taste and a careful analysis might show how tastes are changing in the recession.
6. We might also think about ethics here. Firstly we might note that many of the posts might be made by companies themselves, but ‘under cover’, although some are clearly not under cover. Which approach is ‘best’? And we might consider ‘porosity’ and ‘agency’ as David Phillips describes them. Many posts are made by employees who get information about an offer and post it before official communication. Should they be doing that? And what about the images that are used. They are often not the ‘official’ images and often they are ‘nicked’ from another retailer. We might also consider the sharing of discount codes, including those not intended for ‘general use’. Not to mention the occasional discussion about how to defraud a retailer. Is this unethical consumer behaviour?
So there are a number of ways of making sense of different aspects of the site depending on our focus of interest (a lot more than I have listed here). These can be both celebratory and/or managerial (for example explaining why this is a successful, profitable site) or critical (for example considering why a successful site might form around consumption in this way). They might also be normative (about what should be done – for example how the site deals with payments) or empirical (about what we observe – for example the cultures that seem to emerge from the site). Now have a go at producing your own analysis of HotUKdeals.
The link Colin provided can be seen here (courtesy of the "Internet Archive: Wayback Machine", extracted on 14 February 2009):
[ http://web.archive.org/web/20090214000039/http://www.cemp.ac.uk/communities/interactivemedia/interactivemedia/making-sense-of-hotukdeals ]
BFN,
fp.
The link Colin provided can be seen here (courtesy of the "Internet Archive: Wayback Machine", extracted on 14 February 2009):
[ http://web.archive.org/web/20090214000039/http://www.cemp.ac.uk/communities/interactivemedia/interactivemedia/making-sense-of-hotukdeals ]
BFN,
fp.
hey fanpages, i know about that page already but thats not what im looking for...on that page if you scroll down it says
(Before the page was deleted) when you clicked on the link it showed you an essay someone had written on hotukdeals but its no longer available.
tried contacting the web admin of CEMP for advice it might still be on servers but hidden under a different sub section?
[ http://www.hotukdeals.com/profile/Paidia ] (Last active: 9 months, 4 weeks ago)
Also:
[ https://twitter.com/#!/paidia ]
[ http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mike-molesworth/0/51/348 ]
[ http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Molesworth/603587888 ]
Good luck!
BFN,
fp.
[ http://paidia.wordpress.com/ ]
The paper was also previously stored here:
[ http://www.cemp.ac.uk/communities/interactivemedia/wiki/index.php?title=Paper_on_UK_hot_deals ]