CheapTweet Blog

This is our tenth happy hour video! This week, Hayes is too busy reading “New Moon” to talk much, but he has decided he’s on Team Jacob. We’ve got deals on Twilight stuff, spring clothes, movie rentals and a chance for you to a win a Ford Mustang! Watch for details, links are posted below.

Have a great weekend!

• 50% off Twilight New Moon merchandise from Hot Topic
• BOGO free rentals from Blockbuster Express
• Up to 40% off at Gap’s spring sale
• Up to 40% off Banana Republic’s spring sale
• Win a Ford Mustang from sponsor Jockey

Our sponsor Jockey is giving away a Ford Mustang!

This summer, you could win a classic Ford Mustang just by entering Jockey’s contest. And there are a ton of other cool prizes, like Jockey gift certificates and merchandise.

Click on the image below for more details. And be sure to follow @Jockey on Twitter, so you can stay updated on all their sales and contests (for example, there just might be some giveaways coming up in April). Good luck!

The last edition of the Happy Hatchling focused on women’s needs. This week it’s all about the dads. Heather  – mom and our Happy Hatchling guest blogger – shares some of her favorite diaper bags for dads.

Today’s dad is actively involved with raising the kids. When we first had our baby, my husband was always looking for ways to help out. We got a brown diaper backpack, which I initially disliked because I wanted a more feminine bag. However anytime we would go out with the baby, my husband would automatically wear the diaper backpack to lighten my load. (Honestly, it is amazing how much stuff you need and how heavy that bag can get!) Had we gotten the feminine bag I wanted, I’d probably be the one lugging it around instead.

Now there are so many diaper bag choices that you and your husband can both get a diaper bag that you feel comfortable toting around. Women, please don’t embarrass your husband by making him carry your pink Coach diaper bag! Instead, let him pick out his own diaper bag and he will be more than willing to carry all the baby gear.

1) DadGear Messenger Diaper Bag (pictured)

The best thing about this bag is the accessibility of diaper wipes.  When you open the flap and the wipes are right there. This bag is functional and could be mistaken for your regular work pack.

Because I like this bag so much, I was excited to see that they make them with sports logos. Hook ‘em Horns!

2) Baby Sherpa Backpack Diaper Bag (pictured)

This bag is great for keeping your hands free. Shoulder bags have the unfortunate tendency to dangerously slide off, especially when you are bending over constantly to pick up your baby. You’ll never have that problem with the backpack. Plus, it is definitely not going to be confused as a man purse. The Baby Sherpa has room for everything and is modular so that you can find your items quickly.

3) JJ Cole Essentials Sling Style Backpack Diaper Bag

This sling style backpack is designed for minimal toting. It is perfect for the dad who likes to go on quick outings like going to the park or the grocery store. It holds the essentials (diapers, wipes, bottle) and won’t break your back. It is a bag that can be used as your only diaper bag or as an occasional alternate.

4) Vest Style Diaper Bag from DadGear (pictured)

I mostly hate vest-style diaper bags, but I suppose they can be useful for going out to a park or camping, especially if your husband does not like carrying any kind of bag. If you feel incredibly compelled to go with the vest for functionality sake, this one is stylish and youthful.

However, here is an example of a diaper vest that is only okay if you have multiples or you babysit for the Octomom. It is unsightly and may embarrass the people you are with.

What are some of your favorite diaper bags for dads (or for anyone who doesn’t want to tote around the typical diaper bag)?

This video is a couple days behind schedule, but here is it now. (Please excuse our lateness; I was out sick with the flu last week.) It’s finally spring! We found a few good deals – and one not-so-good deal – to celebrate the new season. The deals we talk about in the video are linked to below.

We’ll be back Friday with our regularly-scheduled video.

• Free pastry with drink purchase at Starbucks on Tuesday, 3/23 until 10:30 a.m.
• Burpee: The Complete Vegetable and Herb Gardener for $26 (orig. $39)
• Payless ShoeSource coupons, 15% off in-store, $10 off online purchase of $50 or more, expires 4/4
• More information about the bad Kmart coupon

We chose a winner for the pig-naming Bye Bye Birdie contest. Watch the video below to see what name won.

Milton is the new CheapTweet mascot! He’s going to help all of us save lots of money.

We’re very happy to introduce the newest brand to become a CheapTweet Store – Kaplan Toys!

Kaplan Toys specializes in high quality, educational toys that challenge children’s intellect and stretch their imaginations. A division of Kaplan Early Learning Company, Kaplan Toys offers a huge selection of safe toys, games and gifts that teach and entertain. We’re very excited to have Kaplan Toys on CheapTweet!

Best of all, they’re launching with a great deal – get 10% off your order of $25 or more.  Plus, free shipping on orders over $50.

Be sure to check out their CheapTweet Store and follow Kaplan Toys on Twitter.

Help us name our new mascot! We’re running a contest to see who can come up with the best name for our new pig. Just tweet:

Hey @cheaptweet, name the pig _____! http://bit.ly/c0cjdZ #cheaptweetpig

and you’ll be entered to win some cool CheapTweet swag and be immortalized for your pig-naming skills.

You’re probably familiar with our beloved mascot – the adorable bird who tweets about good deals. We’ve had this bird for more than a year, but it’s time for us to move on. So as we usher in a new era of finding deals, we say goodbye to the bird and present to you the new CheapTweet mascot – this incredibly cute little pig.

But this pig needs a name! And we need your help in picking something really, really good. Starting right now, we’re going to solicit all the name recommendations we can via Twitter. We’ll then pick our favorite name and whoever comes up with that name will win a great prize!

To enter, post this message with your name idea: “Hey @cheaptweet, name the pig _______! http://bit.ly/c0cjdZ #cheaptweetpig”

• Tweet the message above with your suggestion filled in
• Don’t DM us
• Tweet as many name suggestions as you want

The contest will run through Thursday night.

• Contest ends at 10:00 p.m. CST, Thursday, 3/11/10
• We’ll announce the winner on Friday, 3/12/10

Whoever picks the best name gets a great prize!

• The CheapTweet team will select their favorite name from all the suggestions
• Whoever picks the best name will win a CheapTweet t-shirt, plus other fun surprises
• If we find more than one name we like, we might have a run-off

So, what do you think should we name our new pig?

It’s a very big day in the CheapTweet office. We just indexed our 5 millionth deal tweet! To celebrate monumental tweet #5,000,000, we’re rolling out some awesome new CheapTweet features, including something we’ve very, very excited about – the CheapTweet DealStream. We’ve also enhanced our search engine technology, implemented a new voting mechanism, polished up our site, and got a new logo and a new mascot! Here’s more information about the new CheapTweet.com.

DealStream

We’ve been quietly testing the CheapTweet DealStream for a little while – some of you have been part of our beta test – and now it’s time to share it with everyone. This is a very cool new feature, and we can’t wait for you to try it.

Did you know that we find more than 30,000 new deal tweets most days? That’s a whole lot of deals, and it can be hard to sort through all that to find what you want. This is why we created the DealStream – it’s a personalized and fully customizable stream of only the deals you want to see. There’s a lot more about how to set up your DealStream here. You need a CheapTweet account to use the DealStream, so either sign in or sign up to use it.

Upgraded Search Engine

We’ve made some very useful enhancements to our search engine, which uses specialized algorithms to aggregate tweets about the same deals. This helps you quickly see what deals are popular, reduces duplicate deals on the site, and really helps us sort through spam. Of those 30,000 new tweets we find each day, only about half of them actually make it to the site.

New Voting Mechanism

We’ve removed the It’s Cheap and It’s Lame buttons and replaced them with a straightforward thumbs up and thumbs down button. Just give a thumbs up to the deals you like and a thumbs down to the deals you don’t. Piece of cake.

New Logo and Site Design

One our favorite parts of the new CheapTweet.com is our new mascot. Isn’t this little pig so cute? We’ll be running a contest to help us pick a name for him soon; stay tuned for those details. We’ve got some great prizes for the winner. And in addition to the new mascot and logo, we’ve polished up the way the site looks.

Got any questions about the new features? Let us know! We’re on Twitter and Facebook.

We just launched a very cool new feature on CheapTweet.com – the CheapTweet DealStream. It’s a whole new way to find the deals you’re looking for, making it easier, faster and even more fun than ever before. If you don’t have a CheapTweet account, now’s the time to sign up!

Here’s some more information about how the DealStream works and how to set up your own personalized DealStream.

What is the CheapTweet DealStream?

The CheapTweet DealStream finds the exact deals you want, and delivers them to you right when you want them. The CheapTweet DealStream is a real-time feed of personalized recommendations just for you. You can set your preferences for what kinds of deals you want to see – you can follow certain brands or stores, as well as different kinds of products or keywords.

Every day, we filter through more than 20,000 deal tweets to add more than 10,000 new deals to the site. The DealStream filters through all of these deals – more than 5 million deals overall – to find the perfect deals just for you. It helps you find what you want quickly and easily.

How do I set up my DealStream?

Getting started with the DealStream is simple. You can tweak these settings later, so just pick some to get things started. You’ll need a CheapTweet account to use the DealStream, so go sign up here if you don’t have one already (or sign in to your existing account here).

When you first sign into your account after clicking on the DealStream link, you’ll be taken to the initial DealStream setup page. Setting up your DealStream takes less than a minute.

1. What general categories interest you? Check as many as you like. If you check on a top-level category, like Fashion & Beauty, we’ll automatically fill in the sub-categories. If you’re only interested in one or two sub-categories under a top-level category, just check those.
2. Enter in some keywords to refine your DealStream. You can get as specific as you want here. Type in words or phrases that describe the names of stores, brands, or products you like.
3. Once you’ve entered your preferences, click the “I’m done” button to see the deals we’ve found for you.

You can update these prefences at any time, so you’re not locked into what you set up initially. Play around with it, see what works for you.

How do I make my DealStream smarter?

You can further refine your DealStream in two ways: voting on deals and editing the categories and keywords you selected.

Click the thumbs up button on deals you like. Click thumbs down button on deals you don’t like. When you give a deal the thumbs down, you can also tell us why you don’t like it. Just click on the pink gear that appears when you click thumbs down, then tell us more about why you didn’t like that deal. All this helps us know what deals to show you next time.

At any time, you can edit the categories and keywords you are following. Just click Edit next to categories or keywords and make any changes you’d like.

How do I see my DealStream?

Once you’ve set up your DealStream, you can see the deals it has found for you in several ways. You can always log back into CheapTweet and click on the DealStream button on the top left of the page.

You can also get an RSS feed of your DealStream. Just click on the “DealStream Feed” button on the right side of your DealStream page. Then you can set up the DealStream RSS feed in your favorite feed reader.

In this week’s video, the deals are all related to the Academy Awards. Well, to be fair, this theme is mostly an excuse for Hayes to make jokes about blue cat people, but we found some deals to talk about, too. And we wanted a chance to dress up a little. So, enjoy the show!

As always, links to the deals we mention in the video are posted below.

• MacHeist bundle for $19.95
• Up to 65% off past Oscar winners on DVD and Blu-ray, from Amazon
• Up to 40% off current Oscar nominees on DVD and Blu-ray, from Barnes & Noble
• 5 Oscar-nominated films for $25 at CineMark Theaters
• Marchesa gowns 65% off at the Outnet
• Face painting kit for $9.95

Also, as Hayes mentioned, CheapTweet will be at South by Southwest Interactive. If you’ll be in Austin for the conference, come find us! We’ll have stickers.