Company plans to improve and modernize API.
The user interfaces at eNom and Namejet look and feel clumsy and stale. Looking past the main page of NAME’s sites, the logged-in front-end infrastructure is untouched and acts like time capsule to what existed half a decade ago.
-Rightside shareholder J. Carlo Cannell
On the last Rightside shareholder conference call, CEO Taryn Naidu discussed chasing efficiencies in its eNom registrar business. That’s probably not reassuring to its resellers, nor was it to one of the company’s larger shareholders. The quote above was in a letter from a shareholder.
But eNom is investing in the platform, as it told resellers in its most recent newsletter. In a few months, Mr. Cannell will hopefully be happy to see an improved interface at the company’s eNom.com site, as well.
In fact, eNom tends to agree with some of what Mr. Cannell wrote.
The company admits its APIs have fallen behind the times, although it says that’s the case with many domain reseller systems.
You’ll soon see changes implemented at the company’s own eNom.com site based on the upgraded API. The company says it will be “a cleaner, more modern design and architecture. This will include a new “widget” layer—a series of small, modular UI components—on top of the API which will allow developers to customize the platform’s functionality and their back-end experience.”
Jack says
Taryn, before touching anything, invest money in having a simple service like email forwarding working correctly.
It’s a huge mess.
Michael Fountain (@mfount) says
Hey Jack – Send me details. DM via Twitter. (thx)
thelegendaryjp says
Or preventing the obvious ease of theft.
Meyer says
People at Enom have admitted that Enom’s API is one of the ways the bad guys use to steal domains. Enom has known for years about the backdoor.
If a bank or investment company had a backdoor like this and did nothing, they would be litigated out of business.
Michael Fountain (@mfount) says
Not sure I agree with this statement, but happy to have a discussion about it. DM me on Twitter.
RayJ says
That’s a start… Sad that someone has to go off on a massive rant and threaten a proxy vote to get some of these changes by management in the works. Congrats for the first of many steps I assume will come down the pipeline.
Michael Fountain (@mfount) says
The order of events is not as it seems. 🙂 We started on this new path last year… first assembling a great team… then building out a new roadmap. For the API, for which I was hired to lead, we are running at full steam to deliver some great new features and some much needed enhancements this year. (Same for the eNom UI, also in high gear this year.) Stay tuned for some greatness coming to both. Feedback always welcomed. Catch me on twitter as @mfount …
M. Menius says
At enom, another much needed improvement is the ability to easily view/print your history of purchases. The current method is very outdated.
Michael Fountain (@mfount) says
Hey Max, send me a DM on Twitter. Tell me more. 🙂
A Mitchell says
There are too few happy paths. Too many dead ends – as if by forcing users to spend more time backtracking, users will spend more money – when the opposite is more likely to be the case. Basic compliance with W3C guidelines for usability have been flaunted since 2008, e.g., button colors. Too many red/black combos for text and background within the BR interface. In BR, there are no mechanisms for correcting out-of-sync domains within folders. When I put a domain into a folder, I jolly well expect it to have its settings adjusted to be in conformance with the magic settings of that folder. What about providing report functionality for folder contents/inventories? And what’s with kicking out Google Voice phone numbers from contact data as invalid? Last but not least, why hasn’t eNom/BR got its act together to work with Sedo’s rapid-sale system, to enable fast transfers to buyers? Isolating eNom/BR from such a major marketplace is taking bread off my table.
Michael Fountain (@mfount) says
Thanks for the feedback. Send me a list. I’ll get your voice heard.