01
New item
3.65 seconds · MP3 · played when the deal changed
A small piece of Woot community history
The Woot-Off
Checker
The first Woot-Off checker with an audio alert. It watched the page for you, then called out when an item sold out or a new one appeared—even if you had walked away or left the room.
- Created
- June 9, 2006
- Final version
- 1.7 · 2011
- Original stack
- PHP · JavaScript · Flash
- Status
- Retired & preserved
An interactive reconstruction
Semideaf's Woot Checker v1.7
50% left.
This page used a cache from up to 10 seconds ago and refreshed every 60 seconds.
No popup or Flash required.
Gallery 01
Why it existed
Woot sold one item per day. During a Woot-Off, products could turn over in minutes—and getting the good one meant watching constantly.
This checker changed that. The page refreshed itself, repeatedly read Woot's inventory, and announced the moments that mattered: a sellout or the arrival of a new product. You no longer had to stare at the screen—or even remain in the same room—to know when it was time to come back.
It was the first checker of its kind to add an audio alert and was shared with the FatWallet community in June 2006. The first surviving changelog entry is version 0.1 on June 9. Later versions added different alert thresholds, public source code, custom search, a no-sound edition, a Kids.Woot tracker, and eventually Facebook's Like button.
Gallery 02
The alerts
The original Flash player is gone. These surviving files now play directly in modern browsers.
02
Almost gone
3.29 seconds · MP3 · the low-inventory warning
03
Audio test
4.99 seconds · MP3 · the original test sound
Gallery 03
A brief history
This timeline combines the surviving change log with posts from the original Semideaf blog. Post titles and quotations are preserved as written.
Created and shared
Version 0.1 introduced the first Woot-Off checker audio alert, and the checker was posted to FatWallet. The later About post confirmed: “Semideaf woot off was first created back in June of 2006....”
Captured on the early web
The surviving Wayback Machine snapshot preserves the checker only weeks after launch.
A very 2006 scaling problem
Thousands of visits before 9 a.m. pushed a shared server's load above 70. DreamHost temporarily disabled the page; load dropped below 10.
2-01-07
I am almost ready to release the beta version. There are going to be several new features in this coming beta.
Some quick stats so far on this woot off for my site (as of 1-31-07):
- Data transferred: 6.02 gigabytes
- Successful requests for pages: 1,560,785
v1.021
+Removed other woot verison links. They are now on the Main Page.
+New No Sound Verison.
Woot off over
Woot Off is officially over!
Woot Checker v2.00 Delayed
I had to stop work on the woot checker. I am taking a full load of 18hrs this semester and need to focus on that for right now.
Downtime
I'm in the process of switching web hosting provides and there is gonna be some downtime during the first week of april.
Woot OFF is Here!
Woot OFF has come again! Please use my checker and give me feedback!
Version 1.7
The Woot-Off tracker is repaired and a Facebook Like button joins the page.
Last signal
The final surviving status cache says the checker could no longer parse Woot.
Preserved
The active tracker becomes a static exhibit. Its sounds and source artifacts remain intact.
Study room
Look inside
Wayback Machine · Jul 2006Original page captureVisit archive ↗
Plain text · 1.1 KBOriginal changelogOpen artifact ↗
ActionScript · source artifactFlash audio playerOpen artifact ↗
Some web servers may download source files instead of displaying them. The artifacts are preserved for study and are not intended to run.
Elsewhere in the collection
Next exhibit
A film-watching log kept by fifteen people until it stopped taking entries. Unlike this page, it is still browsable: pick a member and read their ratings, comments and charts as they stood.