Daily Steals

Team DailySteals Rides BikeMS in NYC

Last weekend, three members of the Daily Steals team took part in Bike MS New York City, a fundraising bicycle ride to benefit multiple sclerosis research. This year, Bike MS's route took riders from their starting point in New Jersey on a loop of Manhattan, beginning with passage through the Holland Tunnel, along Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, up Harlem River Drive and along the West Side Highway.

 At Daily Steals we believe in contributing to a better world, and we are honored to have had employees Dodge, Greg, and James all riding for Team Daily Steals last weekend. They rode a total of 55 miles around the city. Daily Steals is happy to be among the sponsors who pledged to contribute to Bike MS for each mile ridden.

 Multiple sclerosis is an auto-immune disorder that affects a patient's nervous system. In MS, the body's immune system attacks the myelin sheath, the layer that coats the body's nerve cells and neurons in the brain, optic nerve, or spinal cord. Its symptoms can include muscle spasms, numbness, tremors, weakness, and problems with balance and coordination.

 Though the cause of MS is unknown, it affects almost half a million people in the US and more than two million worldwide; onset occurs primarily in young adults – many of whom may show no other signs of illness – between the ages of 18 and 30. MS is a tragic disease that robs many individuals of bright futures. Though a cure has not yet been discovered, Bike MS raises money for research relating to treatments and a possible future cure for MS.

Fall is here - Are you ready?

Fall has arrived at the Daily Steals offices. The Keurig is getting more and more traffic, the coat racks are beginning to strain under all the wool, and an aroma of spices and pumpkin seems to be gently emanating from the walls. (Either that or someone's desert caught fire in the toaster oven again.) As we labor each day to find and expose the greatest deals from the furthest reaches of the web, these are the crucial fall items we use to make sure our chakras are seasonally aligned.

ESSENTIAL FALL GEAR

1. Picnic equipment. But picnics are for summer, you say? Nonsense! Fold up a blanket, pack a basket with cheese, fruit, and bread, and fill a thermos with coffee for a leisurely afternoon in the park. Drop by the Heist and pick up some awesome Hampton Forge cutlery and flatware for high quality (and high fashion) picnic utensils. Or, for the more adventurous, drag your Smokey Joe down to the park and have yourself a cookout. It really will just be for yourself, though, since no sane person wants to stand around in the chill eating Ruffles and waiting for a burnt hamburger.

2. Beards. Though only half of us can grow them (and of that half, only about a third can do it well), a full, rich beard is imperative for seasonal style and facial warmth. For now we're keeping them well-trimmed, but come winter these goatees will blossom like cold-weather squash into beards of Rumpelstiltskin-esque proportions.

3. George Foreman grills. Not up to a picnic? Lacking a properly vital beard? No sweat. Snatch a grill from the Heist have your own lil-becue from the comfort of your kitchen. Cook up a quesadilla, put on a scarf, and if you close your eyes, it's almost like you're outside. Almost.

4. A Camera. Everyone who has ever heard the word “foliage” or seen a single leaf fall out of a tree knows that fall is, if not the most beautiful, then certainly the most photogenic season. Besides that, photographic evidence is the only way to prove to other people that your life is measurably prettier – and therefore more exciting, fulfilling, and all-around better – than theirs is. Whether you're Instagramming cell phone flicks, working your point-and-shoot Nikon, or rocking out with a nifty DSLR from the last Daily Steals Heist, documenting the non-stop amazing happening around you is simply not optional.

5. Gloves. That most auxiliary item of cold-weather clothing can make all the difference on a cold walk to the train station or neighbor's house. Sure, leather is chic, but we prefer the warmth and portable-hug quality of good old-fashioned wool mittens. Pro tip: get the kind that fold down into fingerless gloves for extra railway-bum fashion points.

6. Stew. There's a certain kind of cold that occurs only in October and November when unseasonally mild weeks are interrupted by a cold snap sharp enough to take off a limb. No one's prepared – you haven't unpacked your long johns yet, no one closed the windows before bed last night, and even the car's power steering feels grumpy and cold when it starts up. And that's why somebody invented stew. It's the world's heartiest meal, and it's best when served so unbelievably hot it causes permanent damage to the roof of your mouth and tongue.

According to physics, it is impossible to simultaneously eat stew and be cold.

Daily Steals Halloween Brain Storm

Here’s what we’re planning for this upcoming DailySteals Halloween celebration. Although we think Halloween should be a paid day off, we always make the best of every festive occasion. Below are some of our awesome ideas!

Scream Contest
Nothing screams Halloween more than empty dark spaces, frigid temperatures and terrifying screams. Here, at DailySteals, we will lose our voices at our annual SCREAM contest.  Not only does it give us a reason to shout at the top of our lungs, but it’s also very therapeutic.  This is the only day any of our co-workers are proud to be called “loud-mouth.” On this particular day, don’t yell at your spouse when they have used the last of the milk. Don’t tell your child to stop using your new Fendi bag as their coloring book; save it all for Scream Contest!

Costume Contest
What’s Halloween without scary costumes?! Some of us may have bad hair days or may have delayed laundry day a little too long, but whatever the reason, this is the day we can do it all on purpose. Of course we can go out and purchase a scary costume, but where’s the fun in that? Scavenge your home, exercise your creativity and make one of your own to take part in our office Halloween costume contest!

Mystery Treats
What’s the best part of Halloween? Some would say the costumes, but we all know that it’s the Candy. Quite frankly, we’re tired of bullying children out for their Halloween candy stash? Or maybe some of us are ashamed to turn away trick-or-treaters because of “accidentally” eating all the candy. Whatever the reason, leave your shame at the DailySteals entrance because today we can satisfy our sweet tooth! With our Mystery treats event, everyone brings candy and it’s all placed in a large container. Everyone then reaches in the container and retrieves a handful of treats. Sure, there may be candy you don’t like, but not to worry; trading is allowed.

Dailysteals Celebrates 4 years on YouTube!

We're an odd bunch at Daily Steals. When we're not planting our nose into the grindstone seeking out those precious deals, we like to showcase our weird creative juices. And showcase we have! With over 280 videos in about four years, it's safe to say we're having a lot of fun on our Daily Steals YouTube Channel. We've watched Ben rap about Black Friday, aliens land on our planet, attacked our coworkers with toy crossbows, and of course, reveled the fitness expertise of the incomparable Alex "Sparkle" Davies.

A little over a month ago, Daily Steals began a new web series on YouTube called "Test Run," where we demonstrate how to use some of our favorite online deals featured on Daily Steals that day. In seven weeks so far, we've conceived, shot, and produced 13 episodes (where's our Emmy Award?), featuring a wide range of products. For instance, our second episode of Test Run (on August 8th) featured the Hampton 2 Person Double Umbrella, and James showed off its spaciousness by standing comfortably under it with good friend and cool bro Dodge. Thankfully, there was enough space between them  Some other examples include a telescoping aluminum ladder, a bluetooth receiver capable of connecting to any pair of headphones, and much more. We even did a special "weekend edition" of Test Run, looking back at some of our favorite Daily Steals YouTube moments and profiling a local beloved lunch place near the office.

Want to join in on the fun? Check us out at YouTube.com/DailySteals to meet some of our awesome team and peruse through our finest moments. 

A New Addition - The Dailysteals Pinterest Page.

Daily Steals is all over the social mediascape. Our Facebook Page is buzzing, with over 114,000 amazing fans we chat with every day. We have almost 7,000 followers on Twitter and talk with followers every single day. But one of our more underappreciated forays into social media comes on Pinterest, a booming site full of online pinboards where users post their favorite recipes, designs, household tips, and more. We at Daily Steals are big on food, so whenever a mouth-watering recipe comes across our boards we can't help but share it to our "Awesome Food" board. (And we've made a few of the ones we've seen at home -- the Spinach & Pepperjack-stuffed Chicken Breasts were to die for!) Along with those delectable pins, Daily Steals often pins our favorite products on our Pinterest boards to share with our followers. 

Do you have an interesting recipe, awesome quote, or other life-betterment vehicle you'd like to share with us? Follow us on Pinterest and let us know you're following! You'll get the benefit of seeing some of our best daily deals AND food that'll make you wish you were already cooking. Can't get much better than that!

You can find all of our exciting boards at http://pinterest.com/dailysteals/

Enjoy!

Daily Steals Introduces- THE HEIST

Do you like hot deals and sweet savings? If you do, we've got some very exciting news for you! We at Daily Steals work hard to make sure you have five great daily deals every day, and we just couldn't stop the savings there. So we decided to branch out a bit to help you save even more.

Say hello to Daily Steals The Heist, where we've taken a new leap into getting you the best deals on the web! Here's how Daily Steals The Heist works: on top of the five daily deals in five different categories you know and love,

Daily Steals The Heist features an exclusive brand or product line at an awesome discount! If you're looking for a great deal on a vacuum cleaner, there's a chance we'll have six or seven different brands or styles available.

Sometimes we'll have a whole line of just Logitech products, and you can peruse through keyboards, mouses, monitors, speakers, and more.

Maybe we'll have baseball caps from every team in the major leagues, or enough power tools to fill even the handiest man's workshop. Remember, keep an eye on that clock, because these deals may last a day... or two... or three... or even longer! Like everything else on Daily Steals, there's no more gettin' once the clock strikes zero. But have no fear: another brand or line will take its place!

Daily Steals The Heist also comes with a bonus: every deal comes with FREE shipping! That's right: no matter how many items you buy, your shipping comes in standard at 0 dollars and 0 cents. Just another way for you to save! The best part? Your first Heist starts right now. We've got a whole line of sweet FMD Watches ready to Heist.

Want to check them out? Click the "Heist" button above and start looting.

Check it out now!

Daily Steals Contest Greatest Hits

Here at Daily Steals, we strive to give back as much as possible. That’s why we sponsor giveaways, contests and raffles on a weekly, and sometimes even daily, basis. Today, we thought we would take a look back on some of our most memorable moments giving away prizes.

The Biggest Giveaway in the World

An unprecedented event in social media history, the Daily Steals Facebook fan page gave away 50 prizes in a span of just 10 days leading up to Christmas 2011. Prizes of all sorts were given away, including: a video camera, sewing machine, an acoustic guitar, iPhone cases, watches, dart boards, memory foam pillows and more! It was a special event, indeed. To give away these 50 prizes, we had to have 50 unique, individual contests, so this giveaway was TONS of fun. Here are some of the contests: “Best Worst Cell Phone Horror Story”, “Craziest Dream”, “Best Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road”, “Favorite Piece of Artwork” and many, many more. 

Pizza Delivery

This contest was, by far, one of the most innovative Daily Steals contests to date. We’ve done this multiple times and it will most likely be back again. Basically, all our Facebook fans had to do was post pictures of pizza for the chance to win 2 pizzas and a 2-liter bottle of soda from their local pizzeria of choice! Sometimes 1 person wins, sometimes 3, either way, dinner is on us! Definitely keep an eye out for a return of this contest in the future.

Toilet Tunes (Icemonkey.com)

Toilet Tunes is definitely in the ranks for wackiest contest (and poster). Basically, Icemonkey’s Facebook fan page gave away toilet paper roll dispensers with built-in FM radios. Yes, weird—we know. A number of contests were devised in order to decide who would win. Here is an example of one of the contest questions: “You've been commissioned to write a song that will play EXCLUSIVELY in bathrooms all across the country. What is the NAME of your SONG and what is the name of your BAND??!!” Here a few answers: “Clear the Air” by Courtesy Flush; “There's No Time Like Now” by Nature's Calling. The contests went on as such for more than a day, and in the end, we all emerged with a new outlook on potty humor.

Best Prizes

To give away a Nook Color, we devised a contest that gave Facebook fans a chance to follow a comic narrative that we created in our own office! Not long after, we took that same idea and gave away an iPad 2! We released chapters of the comic throughout the day and held contests for each post. It was overall a really fun experience for the staff and, of course, the lucky winners! 

Last summer, we were trying to increase our fans, and what better incentive than to offer a $500 Amazon Gift Card?  The contest lasted as long as it took us to reach 55,000—a goal marker which we have now doubled! A couple months later, we held a similar contest, but asked fans to go the extra mile and share on Twitter, comment on our contest post and tell their friends. For their effort—we ended up giving away 2 Keurig Coffee Makers + $50 worth of K-Cups!

Last but not least on our best prizes list is the Xbox 360+ Kinect giveaway. For this one, we wrote, directed and starred in our own 5 minute webisode about our office! To qualify for a chance to win, all you had to do was comment on the video and share it on your page! The webisode is hopefully one of many future videos that feature the awesome, talented and hilarious staff here at Daily Steals. We encourage you to check it out!

So folks, that’s a wrap on our Greatest Hits: Contest edition. We want you to keep a look out for all new contests and giveaways that are going on right now at our Daily Steals Facebook fan page. Come on over, we guarantee you won’t regret it. And hey, you might even win something!

Boards & Beers

Since drinking on the job is not really encouraged at work, we created an event that would serve our desire to get a little tipsy at the office. It all started when a few of us recognized that a number of staff members enjoyed the game Settlers of Catan. Someone suggested that we all get together and play a game or two and have a few drinks after work; and thus, Boards and Beers was born! While Settlers of Catan never made it to the game table (we realized that it might get a little too heated), we had a host of other games to choose from. The main events took place at the Balderdash and Taboo tables, though there were some memorable games of Apples to Apples as well.

In addition to the board games, and true to the event’s title, we had an array of delicious beers to fill us up and add a little excitement to the night. From what I remember, we had an Omegang Witte Ale, an insanely sweet Cherry Lambic (I don’t recall the brewery, nor do I care to remember!), Dogfish Head 60 Minute, Killians, Shock Top and an assortment of Blue Moons. All in all, there was just the right amount to get the entire office happy without going into wild mode. Suffice it to say, we were all a little rosy in the cheeks.

The long awaited table tennis court has arrived!

Finally, the long awaited table tennis court has arrived! If you have never played this sport, you must immediately run out to a ping pong parlor and see what you have been missing all your life. Not two days in, we already had to create a policy that restricts game play until lunchtime, because some especially enthusiastic staff members would play all day if they could.

The great thing about this game is that it gives all staff members at Daily Steals a chance to level the playing field with upper management. Let it be known: this does not mean that some of the top brass here are not insanely good at ping pong, like head buyer, Ben.

His inexplicable and mind boggling talent for serving, spinning and slamming has led many of us to believe that he is some sort of dark wizard. Nonetheless, there is healthy competition throughout the office and the game has without a doubt brought us closer together. In fact, very soon we will all be taking part in an office-wide tournament to show off our newly acquired and or expertly honed prowess on the table tennis court.

After the tourney, we will be sure to let you know how everyone fared. In the meantime, we challenge you to get out and play yourselves!

IceMonkey.com

Some of you may not know this, but Daily Steals has a partner site called Icemonkey.com that is equally devoted to providing you the best deals possible. For those of you that already know about Icemonkey, let this be a formal introduction!

Icemonkey, you say?

Believe it or not, “Icemonkey” actually means something! Besides humans, the Japanese Macaque (or “snow monkey”) is the only primate that lives in winter climates. Just like this rare and elusive monkey, our deals can’t be found anywhere else but here! Then again—we do monkey around a lot in the office...

What we do

It basically goes like this: Bar none, the prices you see on Icemonkey are the lowest prices you will find anywhere. We organize the website by simple categories: Featured, Electronics, Home & Garden, Toys and Specials. ‘Featured’ highlights the best deals of all categories, and ‘Specials’ has the lowest of the low where you’ll be hard pressed to leave with just one item in your cart.

Deals ‘Till Sold Out

You’ll notice that in the bottom right hand corner of every item cell is a Stock Meter. This meter is completely live and will tell you when an item is about to sell out. As mesmerizing as it may be to watch that meter descend before your eyes, quit hesitating and snatch it up! It will make your day. All of your friends are going to ask where you found such an amazing deal, and with luck they'll get here before it sells out. If not, no worries, because hundreds of other amazing deals await!

Connect

At Icemonkey.com, we’ve made our deals accessible and easy to find with a growing presence on social networks. Sharing on our Facebook fan page keeps us connected and in conversation with all of you. And with over 10,000 likes, we make daily posts, hold frequent contests and give away tons and tons of prizes. You can now find us on Pinterest as well, where we have been racking up pins on our boards. We've created boards for our favorite products, monkeys, food, architecture, and funny quotes. By connecting, you not only get to have more fun with us, but you get more chances to win prizes and find exclusive offers and coupon codes as well.