Forget about those scenes of crazed mobs knocking the doors down at your local department store on Black Friday. The future may lie in melting down companies' servers instead.

"Cyber Monday," the online equivalent of Black Friday, appeared to get off to a robust start this year. According to Web-analytics company Coremetrics, year-over-year online sales had risen by 19.6% as of Monday afternoon. Web surfers even got the party started early, with online sales increasing by 10% on Thanksgiving and 11% on Black Friday.

Is there a glimmer of hope that the economy is getting warmed back up? Will investors in the likes of eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) find a few extra goodies in their Christmas stockings come earnings season? Let us know what you think in the comment box below.