Although various outlets proclaimed Black Friday dead, there were a number of key takeaways:

Black Friday is Far From Dead - Initial traffic reports were rosy and some are predicting this week (including Cyber Monday) to one day be larger than Christmas week.
Online Sales Grew Double Digits - Thanksgiving was up 18.3%. Black Friday grew 16.1%. Cyber Monday was up 16.8%.
Store Experiments Maintained the Frenzy - Walmart, JC Penney and Best Buy were a few retailers that provided lower prices in-store while Kohl's reported their unique returns and in-store partnership with Amazon has been nothing but positive.
Small & Medium Size Merchants Broke Records - Shopify reported a peak of $1 million in sales running through their platform versus $555 thousand last year. Roughly 66% of sales were via mobile/tablet vs. 58% last year. Similar to Alibaba, Shopify runs a live dashboard of sales on BFCM which you can find here.
Amazon Continues to Dominate - Various outlets are reporting 45-50% of Thanksgiving and Black Friday online sales has remained within the Prime coated Amazon walls.

Stay tuned for more news and takeaways as the 4 day shopping frenzy evolves.