Today we bring you an exclusive insider’s view of Frank Schilling‘s bidding processes on NameJet.
One of the most popular domain aftermarket and auctioning platforms, NameJet attracts seasoned domain investors and end users alike.
It is not a secret that like most domain entrepreneurs, Frank Schilling operates an active account on NameJet.
Frank shares with us one of the most well-kept secrets of his NameJet operations: Frank Schilling’s NameJet account is self-operating, a bot.
Frank Schilling – The NameJet bidding account is operated by a bot.
What is a bot? According to Wikipedia:
An Internet bot, also known as web robot, WWW robot or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone.
DomainGang : Frank, what exactly is the bidding account on NameJet, for those that have seen you place bids on domain auctions there?
Frank Schilling: We have a bot affectionately called “the Robot” which places last minute incremental bids to a proxy amount.
It is smart enough to override the proxy when it senses unexpected competition for the name and smart enough to bail out, when it senses it is being run-up by a less than sincere counter bidder.
This is some of our oldest technology and we have been using some version of this for 5 years+
The bot usually works unless robotWars is on the BBC when it tunes out to watch!
DomainGang : This is intriguing, to say the least. Does the Robot operate manually, if needed, and what is the underlying technology?
Frank Schilling: It’s coded in Perl. Yes, the Robot can be overridden – but these days we are so busy we don’t have time to watch!
Revenue from auction bidding on SLDs is not really a part of our business today and I mainly participate to test our Uniregistry market, just like a domainer would.
Think of it as R+D, like when Lamborghini buys a Ferrari car to chop it up, only to see how it was made!
DomainGang : Are there any pictures of the Robot in the wild?
Frank Schilling: Sorry, no. There isn’t a UI that would blow anyone’s hair back! 🙂
DomainGang : Thank you for sharing this amazing information with our readers, Frank. We’ve created our version of the Robot in the picture included in this article.
If you want to beat Frank’s robot as cheaply as possible, then the trick is to LOOK like “a less than sincere counter bidder” and force the bot to “bail out”. Time to program a Frank-Schilling-fake-shilling bot!
Joseph – That might force Frank to upgrade his robot to a T-900!