Today marks a special occasion for Racenet as we launch Racenet 2.0. CEO Damon Robbins updates everyone on the new platform and the performance issues encountered today.
Craig 'Clocker' Tompson and Glenn 'Robbo' Robbins launched this highly respected business 20 years ago this coming February and the mission of Racenet has always been to help our audience gain confidence in their next bet.
Today is the biggest change in the history of
Everyone uses Racenet differently, including Racenet's founders; Clocker is a desktop user and more considered when studying the form while Robbo likes to bet while at the club with mates, so he uses the site mainly on his mobile seeking quick info. The wants and needs of even our founders are very different.
Not everyone embraces change and it affects everyone differently. What is most important is these changes are the work of the entire Racenet team, including the founders, our editorial team headed by Stephen Brassel, Clinton Payne, Paul Joice and the broader team. The racing pedigree of the Racenet staff is second to none and we are confident in the changes, or we wouldn't have made them.
A lot has happened in the racing industry since Racenet launched all those years ago. For example, back in the day you couldn't use Racenet on your mobile at the pub, let alone receive the Best of Three Totes or SP with any off-course bookmaker, as they were illegal.
The biggest change since Racenet launched has been the rise of using the internet on mobile. At Racenet 70% of our audience use the site on a mobile device. Our new platform is responsive based on your device, so you receive an optimised experience based on your device, without losing features or functionality like the previous platform.
Login issue
Currently, we are experiencing an issue with the login button on the comments module:
Please login by clicking on the button in the top right of the homepage:
New Features on Racenet's platform today
News comments
-
Respond to a user's comment, simply press the reply button and you will respond directly underneath the respective comment.
-
You can mention a user in your comment who has already posted in the article, simply place @ (e.g. @bronzebullet) before the username and they will be notified of your comment.
-
You can now include images into your posts.
-
All comments are still required to be approved by Racenet.
Filter the form
-
You can now filter the previous runs of each horse in each race. As an example, I have selected Win and Good below, so I will see the runs of each horse who has Won on Good Tracks (the below horse would have only two runs show).
Position in running
-
You can now view the position of a horse in running at the 800m and
400m, when viewing Previous Runs in the form. -
i.e.
-
The position of the horse is the leading number before the "@" symbol (
) and the distance is afterthe "@" symbol (
).\
Form options
-
When reading the form, you have the ability to hide the following information from view:
-
odds
-
trials
-
form comments
New stat information in the form:
-
Our new form now contains additional information to give you a fuller picture
-
When available, and relevant, you can now view the following information:
-
As favourite
-
Clockwise
-
Anti-Clockwise
-
ROI $
-
Class
-
Group 1
-
Group 2
-
Group 3
-
Listed Races
-
Night
-
Synthetic
-
12 Month
-
Season
-
Jockey/Horse
What is still to come on the new Racenet platform:
Android and Apple applications
-
Both will be launching in the coming weeks. They will offer everything Racenet has, but also lots more to make punting easier when on the run.
-
Email support@racenet.com.au to be placed on our early adopters list, to get access to our beta apps before launch.
Speed maps
-
Our speed maps are a little slow out of the gate and will be arriving soon. We will also be including Settling and Closing speed maps (400m to finish) for each race. In the meantime, you can still access the old site to utilise the existing speed maps by going to https://old.racenet.com.au.
Odds comparison
-
Find the best odds from all of the big bookmakers. At this stage the TAB will not grant Racenet access to its data feed, so we cannot include them. At the moment the prices in the field and form are the best price of Ladbrokes, Luxbet and Sportsbet.
Blackbook
-
We are still building this important feature. You will still be able to access the blackbook on the old site by clicking on Blackbook.
News comments
-
In the second and third stories within a news article the comment module is missing, these will be added in the coming days.
-
We will be adding new story comment counters around the site, including the homepage so you know quickly how many comments each article.
-
Top commented on articles lists will be added to the site, once all of the major features have been added to the site.
Predictor tool
-
A new and improved predictor tool is being built which provides you with more options to choose from and the ability to save your settings on your account which will load for you when logged in on all platforms.
Access to the old site
While we transition everything to the new site, you will still be able to access the form, speed maps,
This presents our existing users the opportunity to use the new site and familiarise yourself, while also allowing themselves time to transition.
Once all of the features are transferred to the new site, we will be decommissioning the Old Racenet site. This will be happening in a few weeks time, so
Attack of the robots
Today and last Monday, when we first attempted to launch the new Racenet site, users encountered significant performance issues which last week forced us to roll back to the old site.
Today we had to keep the site live while users encountered these performance issues again so we could go through a process to uncover the cause as we could not reproduce in test mode or Beta.
It turns out that some users have created automatic robots which download the Racenet site and were triggering an error which was decreasing performance significantly. We have since been able to bring in a release which fixed the issue with the robots.
Performance for users has now returned to a level which is in-line with what you have come to know of Racenet over the past 20 years. As it was robots causing the issue we could not recreate the issue in the test environment which is why we did not have those issues on Beta.
Bugs, feedback or questions
Future champions sometimes have a few issues in their first preparation, everything is not always perfect, take Winx for an example she was beaten a few times before getting it perfect. At Racenet HQ we will continue to fix any bugs that are found on the site over the coming days, weeks and months, plus we will be launching lots of new features and apps to help our audience gain more confidence in their next bet.
We can only make Racenet amazing through the feedback from our users. If you find an issue that does not seem right, want to provide general feedback or more importantly have an idea on a new feature, please send your requests to support@racenet.com.au
Please be patient and give yourself time to adjust to the new platform, we know you'll love the new features
My email is damonrobbins@racenet.com.au if you have any feedback or questions I am always available.
Thank you
Damon Robbins - Racenet CEO
