Woot!, Shirt.woot!, Wine.woot!

In today's world of technological craziness, finding a pure play company on the internet is no difficult feat. There are probably hundreds of companies to choose from, however finding an interesting, original, innovative and, frankly, awesome company that stands out from the rest proves a bit more challenging. With that said, Woot.com fulfills the requirements of being a pure play company as well as integrating an interactive community.
What is Woot?
Woot sells one item per day until 11:59pm or until it is sold out. The items are usually sold at a cheaper price than other places on the internet. Users are limited to buying only 3 of each product per day. Since woot is not the manufacturer, if there is a problem with the product, returning policies are through the manufacturer of the product. Woot actually suggests selling the item on eBay, and the best woot can usually do is a cash refund.

Woot's personality
Woot has a personality all of its own. Part of what makes woot so cool is its sense of humor; this is reflected on the home page of woot, in the description of each product and in the podcasts released everyday. The podcasts are a song, skit or funny sketch available through iTunes about the product that is available that specific day.
Woot has also created a community where users can comment on how awesome their product they got from woot is, or how much it sucked. Users can also ask questions regarding the product for that day. This is common considering most products are electronics, with a lot of technical jargon that the everyday shopper would not be familiar with. Woot also incorporates a blog into the site, as well as forums for woot-related content and non-woot-related content. Contests are also a part of the woot community.
In the event of a woot-off (which is very exciting), when a product is sold out, a new product will appear, with a 12-hour limit on items not selling out. After a product is sold out, the product will not be available at woot.

Woot also has a “bag of crap” deal, which has been extremely popular and has made processing somewhat of a problem. For $1 (plus $5 for shipping), woot will send you a bag of crap. This is literally random items thrown in a bag and mailed to you. Some items are useful and expensive, others are just...well...crap. Here are two examples of past bags of crap contents:

Speck iPhone Hard Case
Lowepro Rezo 30 Digital Camera Bag
Zune 30 GB - refurb
Kodak Easy Share ISO 1250
Dennis Leary doll
Box of MP3 accessories
Total value: $576.25

Evesham Nav-Cam 7700 Touchscreen GPS
Sandisk Sansa 2.0 GB Refurb
Lowepro Rezo 30 Digital Camera Bag
Bag Straps
Dr. Laura Doll
Sandisk Sansa View Refurb
Soyo Freestyler 600 Bluetooth headset (open/returns)
Total value: $653.83

Not all bags of crap contain expensive or useful items, but you never know!

Woot uses a virtual merchant model. The model has similarities to Amazon in that it does not sell Woot products, but products made by other brands. Shirt.woot and wine.woot do the same. However, woot is selling these products at a usually good price; or the products are somewhat hard-to-find. Some products are released initially on woot, thus woot has launch days, where the woot launch logo will appear on the home page. This gives users the ability to get the product before it is released anywhere else, giving exclusivity.

With Woot!, records are kept of how many of each item are sold each day, including how many users bought more than one of the item. Most of the items on Woot are electronic items or computer products; while wine.woot isn't always necessarily wine, other products (such as cheese) are sold on wine.woot, as well. Shirt.woot even has design contests, known as The Derby. The contests involve users voting on t-shirt designs, such as TV show titles re-interpreted.

Woot has successfully integrated an interactive community with a pure play business model that is creative and intriguing.