The RedFlagDeals.com Blog

Back in the fall when we launched the redesigned site we introduced a voting system for deals.  So far the system is working as intended, better deals end up getting more votes, but we’d like to see more people voting.  You do have to be registered to vote, but that only takes a minute.

Why should you vote?  Voting helps us figure out what sort of deals you’d like to more of and most importantly it helps readers who may not have a chance to come to the site everyday find the best/most popular deals!

So if you see a deal you like, vote for it and help your fellow readers!

We’ve got 2 of copies of Sam Roberts latest CD, Chemical City, that have been autographed by Sam Roberts and his band and we’re giving them away!  How can you win?  Easy, just post a comment to this post before the end of the day on Friday (11:59PM EST, March 2, 2007) and we’ll randomly draw 2 commenters to win!

The contest is over!  The winners have been sent a private message and will be announced when we confirm their details!

Due to popular demand, we’ve added a Parenting discussion forum to the RedFlagDeals.com forums.  Now you can discuss parenting issues and money saving tips with other RFD parents!  You can start chatting with other Canadian parents now!

Yesterday, RedFlagDeals.com user Justin was diligently reading his marketing text book for a first year marketing course when he stumbled upon this tidbit: “online services such as Red Flag Deals list and link to discounts and special offers in a directory format.” Yes, it’s official, RedFlagDeals.com is part of the curriculum!

That piece of text is from page 377 of Marketing: An Introduction, Second Canadian Edition by Gary Armstrong, Philip Kotler, Peggy Cunningham, Peter Mitchell, and Lilly Anne Buchwitz.

The founder of RedFlagDeals.com, Derek Szeto (Queen’s Commerce ‘05), offered a possible explanation in the original forum thread:

“Cool… thanks. Found the link. Peggy Cunningham is a Queen’s professor:

http://business.queensu.ca/faculty_and_research/faculty_list/peggycunningham.php

I didn’t have any courses with her but I took one course with her husband Paul Cunningham:

http://business.queensu.ca/faculty_and_research/faculty_list/pcunningham.php

So I guess I have to send Paul a thank you e-mail. Unless Peggy found this site herself - which would be cool as well!”

Pretty cool!  Have you seen RedFlagDeals.com mentioned in any interesting places?  If so, post them in the comments! 

If you only joined RedFlagDeals.com recently, you probably missed our fund raising drive for Toronto’s Daily Food Bank.  Now that the drive is over, I wanted to highlight one last time just how great the RedFlagDeals.com community can be.  We began the drive on Halloween and within 24 hours RedFlagDeals.com readers had donated over $1000!  Having surpassed our original goal, we set a new goal of $2500 and within a week we had beat that goal too!  We set a new goal of $5000 and by the end of the drive we had beat it!  In total over 100 readers donated $5171 to help feed Toronto’s less fortunate.

Here’s a link to the original thread.

Great job everyone!

We had over 750,000 unique visitors in January on RedFlagDeals.com?  Want to know a little about your fellow RFDers?

Here are a few numbers from Google Analytics (a stat tracking program):

Browsers:

• 1. Internet Explorer - 53.61%
• 2. Firefox - 41.21%
• 3. Safari - 2.21%
• 4. Opera - 1.67%
• 5. Netscape - 0.55%

So it seems that Firefox is very popular among RedFlagDeals.com readers.  Much more so than the general Canadian population!

Operating Systems:

• 1. Windows - 94.72%
• 2. Macintosh - 4.19%
• 3. Linux - 0.91%

So far in February, we’ve seen about 3% of users using Windows Vista.

We’ve gathered other stats from the annual surveys we run.  For example, there are many more women on RedFlagDeals.com than you may think.  About 40% of RedFlagDeals.com visitors are female!  But whether you’re out west or out east, whether you are a devotee of Windows or Mac, all RedFlagDeals.com readers are united by their love of a great deal!

We’re happy to announce that the winners of the 2007 RedFlagDeals.com Valentine’s Day Contest are:

• Terri Miller of Ontario wins the 1 Carat Ruby and Diamond 14K White Gold Heart Ring
• Sharon Sharen of Ontario wins the 1/7 Carat Diamond 14K White Gold Heart Pendant w/Chain
• Richard Chong of British Columbia wins the 1/4 Carat Diamond 14K White Gold Heart Hinged Hoop Earrings

All prizes were provided by our contest sponsor, ICE.com! We hope you had a great Valentine’s Day!  Stay tuned to this blog for information about future contests on RedFlagDeals.com!

Welcome to the RedFlagDeals.com blog!  This blog is the new place to find the latest info on what’s going on at RedFlagDeals.com and provide your feedback.  If you check this blog regularly you’ll get early word on upcoming contests, get a chance to provide feedback on new and/or upcoming site features, find out a bit about what goes on at the RedFlagDeals.com HQ, and more.

You can comment on this and any other post in this blog using your existing RedFlagDeals.com account.  If you don’t have an RedFlagDeals.com account, it’s free to sign up and takes about a minute to do so.