May 11, 2011
To Be Released (TBR) Processing Announcement
We are entering into an exciting period. After years of processing TBR requests for our clients we are making some changes to provide a better, more powerful product for our clients.
It is no secret that we are throttled back on TBR requests. The first submission is as soon after 2:00 PM Ottawa time as possible but all remaining requests cannot be placed less than 5 seconds after the prior request. Last week 62 domains were secured in the first assault. Two of those domains actually more than 2 seconds after the TBR start. The two weeks before that there were 50 each week.
It is obvious that the way to get more and better domains is to increase the number of authorized IP addresses for the TBR release. The only way to do that is to acquire more registrars. We have already initiated the addition of one more and sincerely hope to have another come online soon after.
We will be initiating a TBR premium. There will be a $10.00 premium added to the registration fee for every successful TBR starting with the June 1, 2011 TBR Release. As far as I can tell this still keeps us the cheapest on the planet but provides some funding for our continued growth and development. When we have the TBR processing working as designed with multiple ip addresses submitting requests from a common database (testing has gone reasonably well) we will follow the more standard system of TBR ranking – a bidding process. We will be introducing a Vickrey Auction, see http://www.cap-lore.com/Agorics/Library/Auctions/auction5.html where it is explained way better than I ever could.
You have probably noticed the TBR Results that are available on the website. I have tried to provide reasonable and accurate information on the success of the TBR release. It shows many registrars and identifies others using this process. It will be interesting to monitor our success as we increase our exposure. We are prepared to continue to grow the system, depending on it's success and growth logistics.
We hope you share in our enthusiasm.
David A. McFadden
Burmac Business Systems Ltd (dot-ca-registry.ca)
Just to share some responses:
May 11, 2011; Thanks, Dave. I'm out of the TBR game for a while but look forward to trying your new system when I get back to it.
May 13, 2011; I appreciate the email and from your business side I'd say the bidding process on the good TBR names is a very smart business move. For the low priced domains that appear at the bottom of the TBR results, at namespro.ca you can bid $16.88 so thats some thing to consider.
Response; The premium added to TBR requests will be reduced to $5.00, this basically brings my lowest price inline with the those above. As mentioned, I checked all I could find but could not find TBR pricing at namespro.ca
May 16, 2011; OK. I have looked at other sites (again) and there could be a combination that recognizes and honours both an auction system and a bulk, low price request submission. My current thinking is to continue charging the basic retail price for all domains that do not have a bid. You will have the option to bid for the more desirable domains. The minimum bid will be $10.00 and that will be the minimum charge for any request that we succeed in acquiring during the TBR session.
Without a bid, you will continue to pay the same low prices you are now charged. Should you decide to bid on a domain, and we are successful, you will be charged you current retail plus the amount of the first loosing bid (subject to a minimum of $10).
Client A has earned a $12.00 rate based on the size of his portfolio.
Client A makes a bid of $50 and the next highest bid is $30, Client A gets the domain for $42 ($12 earned retail plus the first loosing bid of $30).
Client A bids $50 and no one else bids. Client A gets the domain for $22 ($12 earned retail plus a minimum auction bid of $10 as there were no other bids).
We will start the bidding on June 1, 2011. We are still working on our second IP address and hope to have it available in the reasonable future. The success of this program will dictate the growth and adoption of more registrars (ip addresses).
I appreciate the feedback I have received from all of you. There are a variety of needs that I must try to satisfy and hope this final proposal will meet with approval.
Dave
Being frustrated with the performance of my automated TBR request programs I have been spending a lot of time investigating different communications protocols and testing different hosting options. I have coded and tested various options using PHP and have currently settled on the cURL package. We have also tried different hosting options (my TBR clients need unique IP Addresses for each registrar) and are now co-locating with a service that pings the CIRA TBR in under 2 milliseconds. I don't know if you noticed but on Dec 7, 2016, somehow we managed to achieve the top spot, first position, in the CIRA TBR queue! Any suggestions on how to do this more consistently would be welcomed.
Doing all this work I have also come to the conclusion that my bidding system was not realistic. We are still committed to the Vickrey Auction philosophy but are separating the domain from the bid. The bid has nothing to do with the domain and everything to do with the position in the request queue. You will still never pay the amount of your bid (unless the bid is $10.00), but will be charged the amount of the bid you had to beat to get your position in the queue. We are still, I think, the most reasonable and fairest participant in the TBR release.
Hopefully you will support these initiatives and continue to participate in the weekly race.