The DomainFace Blog

Just a quick update. The new autobidding system is coming along really well and I’m patching in each new service engine as it is completed. The whole system has undergone a complete rewrite behind the scenes and the new way it’s been approached should ensure that it produces much more positive results from now on. Please remember that each service engine (NameJet, SnapNames, etc) is a completely unique development challenge that has its own surprises and bugs that can crop up after days or weeks of going live, depending on how many people use it and accordingly, how many different variations of things like numbers of bidders, auction type and so forth are present for each auction.

A few of you (unwittingly?) tried out the new NameJet autobidding engine which I deployed a week or two ago but unfortunately a nasty bug that I didn’t trap earlier showed up and a few bids we had scheduled didn’t complete. Really sorry about that! I’ve posted a fix in the last 24 hours, so NameJet should be working correctly now. Please feel free to try it out and I’ll keep an eye on the next lot of submitted autobids to see how well they run. I am pretty confident that NameJet should be working really well now, so fingers crossed and as always please let me know if you have any issues.

Now, to add to that, I’ve just uploaded the first beta of the new SnapNames autobidding engine, which has been my main focus for the last couple of weeks. It should be working, but I have some test auctions running right now to confirm that and have already fixed a few bugs I found as a result. The good news is I’ve put it up so everyone can give it a go and of course I’ll keep a watch on how the auctions run in case of any further bugs cropping up. Please do try it out but remember that if you have your heart set on the domain you’re bidding on, to keep a personal eye on it too, just in case there are bugs that need to be worked out.

Once again, I’m sorry the autobidding system hasn’t been perfect thus far- developing a system like this that is completely dependent on an extremely volatile set of external data that we have no control over makes testing slow and difficult. It’s going to be great though, so keep placing your bids and let me know at nathan@domainface.com if you spot any errors. Meanwhile I’ll be working on the new Pool.com autobidding engine, followed by the GoDaddy engine.

-Nathan