Amazon Customer Vote is back! In case you missed it last year here are the highlights. Amazon will offer 3 deal for a vote in 6 rounds. The deal that gets the most votes in each round will be offered for sale at discount in a limited quantity. The other 2 deals will also be for sale but the discount will not be as good.

After you vote, check your email box the day before the round that has your deal. If you are lucky you will be notified and will have a chance to buy the discounted product. The rules emphasize that the sale is a race and that there will be more buyers than products available, so show up early if you don’t want to miss your deals.

Unlike the last year, you can buy any of the three deals and not just the one you voted for. I am not sure if the chances to be selected depend on your vote, and the rules don’t say anything.

Here is the deals offered for a vote and the percentage of votes they collected at the time I cast my own votes (in the parenthesis):

Round 1 - November 28

PS3 Blu-ray Sci-Fi Bundle for $199.00 (21%)
PS3 Blu-ray Action Bundle for $229.00 (28%)
PS3 Blu-ray Family Bundle for $199.00 (53%)

Round 2 - November 29

Eyeclops night vision for $39.00 (56%)
U-Dance for $35.00 (19%)
Razor PowerWing Caster Scooter for $49.00 (26%)

Round 3 - December 1

Samsung 46-Inch 1080p HDTV for $699.00 (63%)
Samsung TL34HD 14.7MP Camera for $139.00 (9%)
Sony Blu-ray Disc Player for $99.00 (29%)

Round 4 - December 2

Nokia N95-3 (Unlocked) for $199.00 (11%)
ASUS Eee PC 900 8.9-Inch Netebook for $129.00 (76%)
Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder, 60-Minutes for $49.00 (14%)

Round 5 - December 3

Navigon 8100T for $299.00 (27%)
TomTom GO 730T for $245.00 (68%)
GolfLogix GPS by Garmin for $149.00 (7%)

Round 6 - December 4

The Sopranos - The Complete Series for $130.00 (15%)
The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Collector’s Edition for $50.00 (7%)
KitchenAid Professional Stand Mixer for $69.00 (79%)

One deal I am especially excited about is the the ASUS Eee laptop. This particular model usually sells for 3 times the price! The deal I wouldn’t be worried about not getting is the TV. I am sure the prices will keep falling after Christmas and already now you can find very good deals on large LCD HDTV’s like this 42” Panasonic for $599.

Are you planning to participate? Which deal do you think is the hottest?

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It is hard to find a bargain in the communication industry. The growth of internet and VOIP is bringing tons of options at our hands. Yet, today I found that at the rate of 13 cents per minute I am overpaying twice when I call my parents in Ukraine with WDT (my current provider). So much for being a pro- bargain hunter!

If I were to stumble upon JustVOIP in my web browsing I would move on. The website design looks cheap and important pieces (like About page) are missing. I did not however. It was my friend who recommended the service to me today claiming he has been using it for some time and is happy with the quality. So I jumped right in.

To begin with, rates to Europe are really low. Many countries are on the free list (below) meaning it doesn’t cost anything to call if you use the computer for your part of the call. Rates to other countries are very competitive too. (Ukraine was €0.05 + call initiation charge of €0.05). Here are the free countries:

You need to install software to create an account. The program runs on Windows and is similar to Skype. You can use it for calling but you don’t have to. If you prefer the old-fashioned way of calling like I do then you can do it by initiating a phone-to-phone call from the web-page. Login to your account, enter where you are calling from and where you want to call to and JustVOIP will call both numbers and connect the call together.

In addition JustVOIP offers a US based call-in number that can act as a gateway for international calling but it didn’t work well when I tried it. I heard the prompt but dialing the number didn’t connect me to the party I intended to call.

After you create an account you can buy credits €10 a piece and enjoy the savings. Don’t buy credits if free service is all you plan to use. Ether way if you give it a try - please leave a comment and let everyone know how it has worked out for you.

Relevant reading:

• Save on your international calls with Jajah
• Calling to Russia and Ukraine - money saving tips
• Finding your way in free telephony (Poll)

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This is October 2008 revision of the Popular Price Comparison web sites list. You can find the last month revision of the list here.

The change in rating shows the difference compared to September results. The list has a total of 34 web sites which is the same number as last month. There are 18 more sites in my database that don’t meet Alexa Rank < 100,000 requirement.

Just as I predicted last month, jellyfish.com dropped off the list, but I added one more website this month - dealio.com is now taking position #20, so the total number of sites in the list hasn't changed

The best performer this month is shopwiki.com (26.23%) who passed bottomdollar, the last month leader, by a small margin. Another notable event is that shopzilla.com has passed pricegrabber.com who has been on a steady decline for some time. The worst performer this month is again dealtime.com (-41.28%). Please enjoy the complete list below.

#	Web Site	Alexa Rank		Page Rank		Online Since
1	shopping.yahoo.com	1 (*)		8		18-Jan-1995
2	froogle.google.com	2 (*)		7		11-Sep-2001
3	shopping.msn.com	6 (*)		7		10-Nov-1994
4	shopping.aol.com	25 (*)	(-19.05%)	7		22-Jun-1995
5	shopper.cnet.com (info)	157 (*)	(-9.03%)	7		05-Jul-1996
6	shopping.com	518	(0.19%)	6		03-Jul-1997
7	nextag.com	532	(0.75%)	6		15-Oct-1998
8	bizrate.com	591	(2.96%)	7		24-Apr-1996
9	shoplocal.com	1007	(-10.66%)	7		24-Sep-1998
10 (2)	pronto.com	1228	(3.76%)	8		01-Jan-2006
11	shopzilla.com	1282	(-1.5%)	6		04-Jul-2002
12 (2)	pricegrabber.com (info)	1290	(-9.04%)	8		10-Mar-1999
13 (2)	smarter.com	1779	(4.66%)	5		28-Apr-1998
14 (1)	dealtime.com	1855	(-41.28%)	6		07-Oct-1998
15 (1)	epinions.com	1886	(-13.41%)	7		12-Feb-1999
16	thefind.com (info)	2686	(18.21%)	6		19-Oct-2006
17	become.com	3443	(4.12%)	6		20-Jan-2004
18 (1)	like.com	4174	(6.68%)	6		22-Feb-1995
19 (1)	pricerunner.com	4223	(-17.21%)	6		19-May-1999
20	dealio.com	4714	(n/a)	5	(n/a)	08-Sep-2004
21 (2)	shopwiki.com	6090	(26.23%)	5		15-Dec-2004
22 (1)	retrevo.com	7394	(-1.25%)	6		10-May-2006
23 (1)	mysimon.com	8677	(-9.91%)	7		15-Apr-1998
24 (4)	calibex.com	9226	(-27.27%)	4		02-Oct-2000
25 (1)	ebates.com	10032	(11.71%)	5		29-Dec-1998
26 (1)	pricewatch.com	15254	(-4.96%)	6		26-Sep-1995
27 (2)	bottomdollar.com	19108	(24.22%)	0		04-Jul-1997
28	dealighted.com (info)	23991	(4.84%)	6		09-Oct-2006
29 (3)	sortprice.com	26317	(-7.07%)	4		15-Jan-2004
30 (3)	bestwebbuys.com	26391	(-5.05%)	6		06-Jan-1998
31 (1)	pricescan.com	44471	(-2.93%)	6		03-Sep-1997
32 (1)	hawkee.com	52197 (**)	(-1.45%)	5		02-Jan-1997
33 (1)	mpire.com	53275	(4.94%)	5		01-Jun-2006
34 (1)	streetprices.com	84852	(5.59%)	5		16-Oct-1997

(*) Note: traffic stats for these sites is an aggregate of all traffic to the top domain (e.g. Yahoo.com or Google.com) and thus cannot be used to judge how popular this particular price comparison service is.

(**) Note: the web site is a portal with price comparison engine being one of the offered web services. Alexa rank cannot be used to judge how popular this price comparison engine is.

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Earlier this month the chain announced it is closing 155 stores. Today the news came that Circuit City filed for bankruptcy protection. According to the press release the company has negotiated $1.1 billion in revolving credit to continue the operation and will honor returns, exchanges and gift cards as usual. This looks like a soft landing. We all know what happened when Sharper Image went under in February.

I personally have little hope that Circuit City will survive the crisis. Holidays is usually when retailers see the bulk of their profits and the fact that Circuit City had to file for Chapter 11 at the start of the shopping season is troubling.

Source: Short Circuit City at Forbes.com

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This is October 2008 revision of the Popular Deal Sites list. You can find the last month revision of the list here.

The change in rating shows the difference compared to August results and includes all deal sites from my database that meet Alexa Rank < 100,000 requirement. I am sticking with the original limit as moving to 50,000 seems to cut some interesting sites.

The winner this month is again buxr.com with a gain of (22.36%). I am really happy that my idea was sound and our project finally gets some recognition! The worst performer is again the anandtech.com forum with Alexa rank dropping like a stone at the rate of (-40.11%). Something is clearly going on over there. If you have a clue - chime in in the comments

#	Web Site	Alexa Rank		Page Rank		Online Since
1	slickdeals.net (info)	868	(-20.06%)	6		10-Nov-1999
2	fatwallet.com (info)	1530	(-11.43%)	5		29-Nov-1999
3	dealnews.com (info)	4709	(-3.09%)	6		20-Jan-1999
4	deals2buy.com (info)	5756	(-24.32%)	5		15-Nov-2002
5	bensbargains.net	5923	(-11.42%)	5		21-Mar-2000
6 (1)	techbargains.com (info)	6219	(-2.57%)	5		03-May-1999
7 (1)	dealsea.com	7856	(-10.35%)	6		27-Jun-2001
8 (1)	dealspl.us (info)	8240	(7.43%)	4		15-May-2006
9 (3)	anandtech.com	8387	(-40.11%)	7		24-Aug-1997
10	dealcatcher.com	9940	(-0.59%)	5		28-Jul-1999
11	cheapstingybargains.com	11297	(-5.55%)	5		20-Jan-2005
12	dealigg.com (info)	11390	(4.21%)	3		04-Sep-2006
13	dealtaker.com (info)	12521	(-3.19%)	6		08-Feb-2004
14	spoofee.com	16890	(-3.89%)	5		31-Dec-2000
15 (2)	resellerratings.com (info)	18132	(-3.08%)	6		18-Jun-1998
16 (1)	edealinfo.com	18294	(-11.73%)	5		12-Dec-2000
17 (1)	dealsofamerica.com	18823	(-6.33%)	4		06-Sep-2003
18 (2)	xpbargains.com	19182	(-10.65%)	4		29-Nov-2001
19 (1)	gottadeal.com	25304	(14.84%)	4		27-Jan-2003
20 (1)	dealofday.com	27994	(1.46%)	5		30-Aug-1999
21	bargainist.com (info)	30772	(3.03%)	3		21-Nov-2006
22	couponalbum.com	35731	(4.39%)	4		18-Jan-2006
23	judysbook.com	38258	(-1.84%)	5		11-Aug-2003
24 (1)	savings.com	40458	(7.77%)	4		20-Apr-1995
25 (1)	bradsdeals.com	42835	(-0.66%)	4		29-Jun-2005
26	dealslist.com	56841	(-5.72%)	4		18-Jul-2000
27 (1)	bargaineering.com	60203	(-0.13%)	2		01-Dec-2004
28 (1)	passwird.com	63126	(-5.01%)	3		28-Aug-2001
29 (6)	buxr.com	67840	(22.36%)	3		04-Dec-2007
30	dailyedeals.com	68009	(0.15%)	4		18-Feb-2000
31 (2)	gotapex.com	71903	(-11.48%)	4		29-Apr-1999
32	hotdealsclub.com	73618	(-3.96%)	4		27-Dec-2000
33 (2)