Swanky Conservative

I knew the Cyber Monday crap I heard Miles and the other CNN tools spewing yesterday morning was just that, crap. What were they talking about? Last year and the years of the “Dot Com” boom there was no such term. Cyber Monday? Puh-leeze. Talk about buzzword compliance. It sounded like something a technology startup would pitch to get some quick VC funding.

Well, CNN got taken. According to a Business Week story, Cyber Monday is a term thought up by Shop.org. Shop.org is an association of online retailers. Shop.org put out a press release on November 21, talking up the Monday after Thanksgiving as becoming “one of the biggest online shopping days of the year.” CNN took this and ran with it and Monday morning, it was repeated over and over that the day was Cyber Monday. Online sales were going to be amazing; etailers were eagerly anticipating the sales, blah blah blah.

History and the facts tend to disagree with Shop.org and CNN. Historically the busiest online spending day comes between December 5th and 15th, per comScore Networks. The graph below is from their “Online Holiday Shopping Update - 11/27/2005,” available on the front page of their site (the previous link).

As you can see, for 2003 and 2004, Week 6 of the season, ending on December 11, is the overwhelmingly busiest time. Second place would be the next week. Cyber Monday, Week 4, looks like it’s fifth in the list.

Looking back at CNN’s article, there’s a pretty red and white infograph at the top of the page. It lists Cyber Monday Deals from some companies. Adidas.com, Barnes & Noble, CompUSA, Godiva, Urban Outfitters and Zappos.com. Random online sales picks? Perhaps. Coincidentally, all are members of Shop.org.

Were I doing a story about online sales, I think I’d look at the one company surprisingly not in the above list: Amazon. After that might be Walmart. What about Home Depot? Target? Apple? Dell?

I think one of two things happened: 1) CNN tried to “Katrina” the story by making things up out of possibilities and conjecture. 2) CNN got totally taken by a press release and passed it off as news. Either way, this story directly impacts our perception of reality and in this instance, that could mean impacting our wallets. You want to piss people off, try snookering someone when it comes to money.

[tip to Slashdot where you can read some pretty cynical and funny comments about Cyber Monday]