I have a nice story that I worked on most of today and was hoping to get it up yet but It looks like that will not happen yet today as I am waiting for a couple replies back.

DotWeekly.com will be undergoing a server upgrade tonight from about 8-10 PM PDT. DotWeekly will be down during this time, so I wanted to provide you this info ahead of time.

See you back again soon and I hope the never servers are more stable then the last set.

I have updated my first Luckyman.com post after hearing back from Afternic.com about the $1,000 bid showing when I placed my bid during the auction. I bid $70 but was outbid by a Proxy Bid and the current bid went to $75 right away. The problem was, I could see the $1,000 bid amount, even though I was only bidding $70…. proxy? I didn’t know.

Afternic has explained to me:

"Proxy bids are never shown on Afternic.  In the case of the domain you were inquiring about, there was a problem with the bidding that occurred on this name which resulted in the name auction being taken offline for a period of time to rectify the problem.  When the problem was corrected, the bidding showed a “jump” to a higher level – the interim bids did not display.  The bid shown is not – and never was – a proxy bid.

Peter Lamson - Afternic.com"

Well, Comment # 7 in my first post, from the bidder stated THEY placed a proxy bid of $1,000?

Secondly, looking at the Screenshot’s in my first post, you will notice the Bid time stamps are "changed" or are "different" for the $1,000 bid amount. ????? Amazing how easy it is to "change" history…..

I took the first screenshot when I placed my bid November 12. I took the second screenshot Today (Nov 17) as the auction ended.

The first screenshot shows the $1,000 bid placed on 26-Oct-2008 8:12 PM EDT. The second screenshot shows the $1,000 bid amount placed on 13-Nov-2008 1:00 AM EST?

Different Time Zones, Different Dates. A proxy bid time stamp should and does not change no matter what. If the $1,000 bid showed from 26-Oct 2008 8:12 PM EDT, that bid should show as well on the final screenshot of the bid history. Well, now only the $200 bid amount does.

As I said in my update to my last post… Either way, it never looks good when things are "different", bid history is changed (who would of thought you could Change History) and having a bid amount of $1,000 showing when the current bid was only $70 and all of that. Pete has assured me of no "Hidden Plan/Plot to take advantage of anybody" but I still feel the people that saw the same SS that I did (First one on First Post) had a  good idea that the $1,000 bid they could see questioned if it was a proxy bid or not.

At a minimum this auction should be rerun, with an email going out to all bidders of what happened (I didn’t get an email as a bidder anyway, that the auction had an error or was taken "offline" for anytime period). This bid history change could of and most likely was the error they had, but these things are just hard to explain if you ask me.. $1,000 amount Oct 26 one time, $1,000 Nov 13th a different with the time stamp of the $1,000 down to $200.

As of November 13, 2008 (today) Namejet.com will be offering .mobi and .tv domain names in it’s Pre-Release section of it’s site.

These domain names will come from their partner network which includes NetworkSolutions.com, eNom.com and Fabulous.com to mention a few.

This will be .mobi’s first time in the "expired" auction world so it will be interesting to watch and see what happens with the drops that will be taking place shortly. I assume the .tv is NJ just expanding a little.

If the recent Sedo auction gives us any idea, it looks like .mobi is fading and the .mobi expired auctions will not be overly exciting. For the .mobi lovers, this will be an exciting time for you as many people are losing faith in the extension and the failing economy will help as well to keep pricing lower.

Please see update below as well

LuckyMan.com is currently on auction at Afternic.com but the bad news, the domain is owned by Tucows….. so I won’t be bidding. (minus my test bid)

I was watching this domain for sometime and it just went to auction. I checked the bidding and noticed something a bit odd. I never bid on domains at Afternic auction, so I am not 100% sure on how the system works but I placed a test bid to see what would happen and see if it backed up what I was thinking..

It appears the High Bidders "Proxy Bid" is visable for all bidders checking Bid History to see.

Now if this is  the case, that’s not right! You can see in the SS above, the Current bid is $75 by obadaz. That bidder was also the high bidder at $65 when I placed a test bid at $70. I was outbid from the start and the price went up to $75 and Current moved to that bid for the status.

I would bet if somebody bid up to like $900 or $975, obadaz would still be the high bidder???? I checked all other current auctions and there bid history and none of them looked like this one by showing a much higher bid price like this. I sent an email to Afternic to clerify but wanted to see if others have seen this before or if it’s what I think it is.

This is the reply that I recieved from Afternic below:

"I wanted to follow up with you on your question regarding proxy bid display on Afternic.

Proxy bids are never shown on Afternic  (I am getting a volume of emails from sellers who read your post who ask why we do this – we do not).

In the case of the domain you were inquiring about, there was a problem with the bidding that occurred on this name which resulted in the name auction being taken offline for a period of time to rectify the problem.  When the problem was corrected, the bidding showed a “jump” to a higher level – the interim bids did not display.  The bid shown is not – and never was – a proxy bid.

Peter Lamson - Afternic.com"

I think there was an error with the auction, but clearly as Comment # 7 says below, the bidder stated they put a proxy bid in for $1,000 . Secondly, I think as Peter stated, it was simply an error, but the $1,000 should of been removed as well during the fixing of the problem.

This "error" might also be noticed when you compare the two (2) different bid times for the $1,000 bid amount.

The first screenshot shows the $1,000 bid placed on 26-Oct-2008 8:12 PM EDT. The screenshot just above shows the $1,000 bid amount placed on 13-Nov-2008 1:00 AM EST.

Different Time Zones, different Dates.

Either way, it never looks good when things are "different", bid history is changed and all of that. Pete has assured me of no "Hidden Plan/Plot to take advantage of anybody" but I still feel the people that saw the same SS that I did (top) had a very good idea that the $1,000 bid they could see questioned if it was a proxy bid or not. You can also see a rolling screenshot of the bid history here and you can choose for yourself.

It does seem like a silly question but I think the fact is that not many do.

My reason behind thinking that very few site owners ever visit their own sites is because I always find so many errors(function) on so many sites, the owners simply CANT be using the sites or they would be fixed….

Most "problems" end up being reported by users over time, but this should and could be prevented if the site owner ever just typed in their URL and used the site like a User from time to time!

An example was an error I kept getting at Afternic.com last week. I kept getting a security error with each and every link that I clicked. It was really ticking me off and I was trying to get some things done. I was sure to report this issue with detailed directions of the error I was having. A short time after reporting the error, I was contacted with a Thank You and it will be fixed shortly.

The next day the Pop-Up box was gone and the site was back in normal working order. (your welcome, as I’m sure you were getting that little box as well if you were using afternic) It just shows that it didn’t get fixed on it’s own, it was because I brought it to their attention that it was fixed.

Now if I wouldn’t of contacted Afternic, I’m sure that darn little pop-up would still be coming up today… So I advise you, if you notice a problem with a site that you use, take a minute or two and send their support an email about the issue. Like I said, it’s very likely the site owner doesn’t ever visit their own site.

If you happen to be a site owner, I suggest you get on your site and use it like your users do. You might discover some functions that are not very user friendly or some functions that simply do not work. A well working site makes users happy and invites them back!