Gixen Mirror service introduced

[mario]

Gixen Mirror service has just launched.

It's a mirror server located in a different part of the country that should further reduce chances of your snipes being late or not submitted due to network delays, hosting facility problems, or outages on the main server.

While Gixen main service remains completely free, there is a fee required in order to use Gixen Mirror service. For a limited time it's offered at promotional price of only 5$ a year. While I was reluctant to introduce any fees, this is absolutely necessary in order to make Gixen operation sustainable. By paying for the Gixen Mirror service you support the whole Gixen web site.

To all donors up to date I granted at least one year of free Gixen Mirror service. Some may have received more, depending on time and amount of donation.

Backlinkers also get Gixen Mirror service for free, as long as they keep linking Gixen, and as long as pagerank of the linking page is at least one.

Please send me your bug reports and comments, or post them here in the forum!

Mario.

[Guest]

Does subscribing to the mirror service via paypal also lift the limit of 10 scheduled auctions ? That would persuade me to subscribe

[mario]

Yes, all the limitations are lifted. Hurry before I raise the price

[Guest]

Thanks for the quick reply and a great service. I found this site a week or so ago and it's been really useful. I've just paid now as this is a bargain for a years use of this

[mario]

It is indeed, Gixen is not profitable right now, but I count that over time volume will become large enough.

[Guest]

Hi,

I've just noticed that each site is showing me different versions of reality.

The Chicago site shows two of my auctions as bid under asking price, while the mirror correctly shows one under and one won.

[mario]

That's normal, these are different servers, and each shows status of its own snipes. So, if one of them shows "HIGH BIDDER" that means that's the one whose snipe won, and in that case it's normal that the other one shows "BID UNDER ASKING PRICE", as it couldn't enter the same bid again.

[Guest]

Ah!

So it's not a mirror as in a shared database; rather it's two separate instances of Gixen, both of which attempt to place the bid.

Thanks, that explains it.

[mario]

Correct, shared database would be a single point of failure.

These are two servers, two databases. The only thing shared is the user interface, so the website and the main server may go down, but mirror will still execute the snipes. Plus, it is extremely unlikely both servers will be late to submit your bid (hasn't happened so far). No other sniping service offers this level of reliability.

[eatmungbeans]

Hi, I'd like to subscribe to the mirror service, but I'm a bit confused about the group bids thing.

Could you clarify?
I find this is a killer feature that let's me queue up snipes for the same products, but it says on the mirror FAQ that

No, group bids are not supported on Gixen Mirror .... and there is no need to implement this, as group bids are replaceable by definition.

I'm guessing/hoping you mean that the group bids *are* supported still on the primary, but not the mirror, but it is still possible to use the group feature even if you have a mirror subscription.

Could you let me know please? Thanks

[mario]

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Group bids stay on the primary only, and standard (non-grouped) bids are sent from both servers.

[phadedmatrix]

when i looked to sign up, it said it was $6?

[mario]

It is, the price went up couple of weeks after mirror was introduced. It will not be raised further any time soon though, too many users complained .

[Guest]

Is gixen profitable yet?


Lukeyson

[mario]

Quick answer is - no.

[Guest]

I'm just wondering how the site isn't profitable since it appears that you are using ebay's commission junction when you are submitting the snipes. (i.e. sending the snipes through rover.ebay.com/.../my_ref_number).

This must be the case since every snipe I send through Gixen doesn't get a kick back at kickitback.com (which is ran by Auctiva). Basically, ebay's commission system will only pay one person (one referal fee per auction) ... and I am assuming that you must be getting those commissions since I the only auctions I don't get paid for auctions that I snipe with Gixen.

Just saying

[Cupid]

What makes you think that anyone is paid for winning bids submitted by Gixen?

I dont think eBay allows any sniping sites to be involved in such schemes, it certainly does not permit them to use its API.

I dont get kickback when I bid directly, so why should Gixen be getting anything this way?
_________________
Mark

[mario]

Just my curiosity - how do you know that AuctionSniper is using kickbacks? How can you tell?

From my point of view - that would be abuse of ebay's incentive program... but Auctiva was doing it (until they cut them off), and so has AuctionSniper (apparently they are the same company). I don't intend to.

[nochkin]

[Guest]

When you use kickitback, all you have to do is view the item after using the U-R-L that lets eBay know that EVERYTHING you bid on (during that browser session) has been referred by kickitback. The ONLY way that you DON'T get that referral is if you bid on the item AGAIN through someone else's refferal number.

I've tested this several times ...

Believe me, Gixen must be getting a referral fee for every item you win using the sniping service. Not that I have a problem with that ... it is a great service.

[nochkin]

[mario]

[eclectic_spirits]

I'm a Mac user and interested in this...is it Mac compatible?

[mario]

Yes, Gixen works from any major web browser, including Safari.