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Posted by joannpeach in Program Events, Business News & Developers Conference
Monday, Feb.08.2010, 5:35 PM PT
eBay just announced the first of their eBay: On Location events happening in Atlanta March 19-20.
eBay: On Location is a new series of day-and-a-half long, in-person, educational and networking events designed to give part-time eBay sellers and small businesses on eBay practical information and business insights. Courses and interactive sessions will be presented by both eBay experts and third-party business and branding leaders.
Early Bird registration ends February 16.
eBay Sellers will find eBay: On Location a great way to learn from eBay and from each other. eBay Developers should keep their eyes on the Developers Program blog for information on the upcoming 2010 eBay Developers Conference.
The eBay DevCon call for papers closes February 26, so get your proposals in now and share your expertise with the rest of the eBay Developer Community.
For more information on eBay: On Location, see http://ebayonlocationevents.com.
For information on the eBay Developers Conference and the Call for Papers, see http://devcon.ebay.com.
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Posted by Perrine V. Crampton in Developers Conference, Business News, Program Events & Developer Community
Thursday, Jan.21.2010, 4:13 PM PT
Are you ready for DevCon 2010?
We’re pleased to announced that the Call
for Papers for this year’s DevCon has been opened and we’d like your
participation. We are looking for interesting
subjects and points of view that address real world challenges and advancements
in e-commerce, from both business and technical perspectives.
Share experiences you encountered in learning or
building applications on the eBay or PayPal API platforms. Speak on topics of
interest to developers who are involved in all the elements of e-commerce,
including shipping, security, storage, checkout or marketing your solution to
your customers.
By submitting your topic no later than February 26, 2010,
you may be chosen to lead a conference session! Plus, selected speakers receive
free registration for DevCon and one night hotel stay.
Where? When? Stay tuned -- we’ll be releasing details about dates
and location soon!
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Posted by Bradburn Young in Developers Conference
Monday, Nov.16.2009, 1:27 PM PT
eBay is presenting some sessions here at the PayPal X Innovate 09 conference, and today, Rekha Patel of eBay gave her classic tutorial on how to get started creating applications using the eBay APIs. It's about the best introduction you can get to the eBay APIs. I humbly summarize. Suppose you are a casual eBay seller, selling five to ten items a week, and you want to ramp up to sell thousands of items per week. Listing via the eBay website won't be scalable for you. You'll need the eBay APIs. You can use the APIs to build widgets, gadgets, plugins, mobile applications, toolbars, and desktop and web applications. You can write these applications in any programming language that can sent HTTP requests. The applications can list items, manage inventory, find items, buy items, integrate with fulfillment systems, manage messages, manage user accounts, and perform and react to research about listings and transactions on eBay. The APIs fall into four main groups: Buying APIs
- Finding
- Shopping
- Merchandising
Research and Data APIs
- Price Research
- Advanced Research
Selling APIs
- Trading
- Large Merchant Services
- Feedback
- Best Match
- Selling Manager Applications
Monitoring APIs
- Platform Notifications
- Client Alerts
You can check them out and use them at developer.ebay.com. Rekha did two live demos. The first was a simple demo that showed how to find and use public information on eBay. This operation used the new Finding service to get information on the price and availability of an item listed on eBay, and then to filter the results by location and price. The second was more complicated, and showed how to use APIs on behalf of a user of your application, in ways that involve that user's private information and require that you have proof that you have that user's formal permission. Rekha showed the process of joining the eBay Developers Program, getting an application ID and keyset, creating a user in the eBay Sandbox, getting a token for the user using the eBay token tool, and linking that user to the application ID. You can do all of this in about ten minutes. Having demonstrated that it's not that hard to get started writing eBay applications, Rekha closed with some design considerations for eBay applications:
- Use the APIs that require the least amount of authorization. If you only want to do finding and research, you don't need to get user tokens to act on behalf of users.
- Test in the Sandbox.
- Implement retries in case of server errors.
- Use best practices as given in the API documentation and the Knowledge Base.
- Limit the data you process to what you need.
- Implement logging, especially if you have a selling application.
- Plan to renew user tokens before their expiration at 18 months.
- Plan to update your application to the current eBay version about every six months.
- Estimate your API call volume.
- If you need more than 5,000 API calls per day, apply for a Compatible Application Check, which raises your application's call limit.
You can learn all about the eBay API platform here:
Check out Rekha's presentation here.
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Posted by Delyn Simons in Developer Community & Developers Conference
Wednesday, Sep.23.2009, 9:02 PM PT
"WatchCount.com shows how many watchers the most popular items on eBay have accumulated."
-- Jake Becker (helios825) of WatchCount.com on how eBay buyers and sellers use his tool
Becker joined us in June for the eBay Developers Conference 2009 at eBay's campus in San Jose to discuss his recent win in the Service to the Community category of the eBay Star Developer Awards. Sellers use WatchCount.com to know which items are popular to source/niches worth focusing on for research. Shoppers use WatchCount.com widgets to find that great deal they've been looking for. Check out his Success Story to learn more.
Becker talks about the core APIs that run his app, such as FindPopularItems from the Shopping API, GetMostWatchedItems from the Merchandising API, GetSingleItem, and GetCategoryInfo. As for his prolific posting of terrific answers in the developer forums behind his Star Developer Award? "I go to the developer forums often to look for information and news, but when I see someone ask a question, I feel compelled to help them out. I still feel like newbie myself sometimes."
Watch our interview with Jake filmed on location at eBay DevCon below (clip is 5:52 in length).
- Delyn
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Posted by Delyn Simons in Developer Community & Developers Conference
Monday, Aug.10.2009, 2:59 PM PT
"We understand how retailers operate, and we work directly with our retailers to integrate into their systems specifically."
-- Joel Mosby of Mercent on working with retailers to grow their businesses on eBay
Mosby joined us in June for the eBay Developers Conference 2009 at eBay's campus in San Jose to discuss their recent win in the Early Adopter category of the eBay Star Developer Awards.Mercent's experience in the retail space recognizes that retailers rely on custom development to connect their existing systems in order to efficiently sell online across numerous e-commerce channels, including eBay.
Getting Mercent's first eBay customer up online using Mercent Retail in November 2008, just in time for the 2008 holiday season, was a result of great teamwork. By working collaboratively with the eBay API platform and Large Merchant Services teams using the asynchronous transaction model along with great support allowed them to get the job done in time for the big holiday shopping season -- success!
Watch our interview with Joel filmed on location at eBay DevCon (clip is 4:17 in length).
-Delyn
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Posted by Delyn Simons in Developers Conference & Developer Community
Wednesday, Jul.22.2009, 3:52 PM PT
"For our customers, we found that conversion -- if you have real-time, accurately priced inventory -- jumped up between 5X to 15X compared to where the sellers had been previously -- a huge, huge increase in sales." -- Clark Hale of Monsoon on the value of their dynamic pricing tool to eBay sellers Clark Hale and Jeff Cutler-Stamm joined us at this year's eBay Developers Conference at eBay's campus in San Jose to discuss their recent win in the Most Innovative category of the 2009 eBay Star Developer Awards.
Monsoon's particular take on dynamic pricing creates efficiencies for their customers selling on the eBay marketplace through automation. Rather than relying on historical pricing data, they enable sellers to make use of pricing of competitive products for sale on the site at that particular moment. Jeff also shares "where all the action is" amongst his top three API calls by volume: FindItemsAdvanced, AddItem and ReviseItem.
Watch our interview with Clark and Jeff filmed on location at eBay DevCon (clip is 7:00 in length).
-Delyn
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Posted by Delyn Simons in Developers Conference
Thursday, Jul.16.2009, 5:39 PM PT
The post-event
eBay DevCon Web site is up! Keynote Videos, Session Decks, Photos, Star Developer
Award Winner interviews, and more:
http://www.ebay.com/devcon
Session videos and a highlights video are coming soon — check the developer blog to get notified when these go live.
- Delyn
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Posted by Laurel Kline in Business News, Program Events & Developers Conference
Monday, Jul.13.2009, 11:12 AM PT
Today eBay announced plans for a series of smaller events "within a day’s drive for as many sellers and buyers as possible." The new program is called eBay: On Location. eBay: On Location will kick off in Orlando in February, and wrap up in San Jose in August with a 15th anniversary celebration.
eBay Developers Conference plans are still being finalized for 2010, so keep an eye on the developer blog to see those plans unfold. We're pretty excited about eBay's 15th anniversary, and hope you are too!
For more information on eBay: On Location, see the announcement.
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Posted by Delyn Simons in Developers Conference & Developer Community
Wednesday, Jun.24.2009, 12:25 PM PT
We're currently working on putting together the keynote and session videos for you, but in the meantime here are some useful links you've been asking for:
Thanks again to our great crowd. We hope you walked away with the insight, inspiration and connections that will make it easy to build your business with us. Keep your eye out for the videos coming your way soon! - Delyn
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Posted by Delyn Simons in Developers Conference
Monday, Jun.22.2009, 1:58 PM PT
Hi -- Delyn here. I'm posting a terrific update from one of our eBay platform architects, Farhang Kassaei. He did a great write-up of the PayPal session with Damon Hougland from the PayPal platform team that happened on Wednesday @ eBay DevCon. I think you'll recognize a lot of the platform requests, especially better integration between the eBay and PayPal platform.
Enjoy!
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My name is Farhang, and I am a platform architect @ eBay Marketplaces. We just opened up Selling Manager Pro to eBay developers and I wanted to see what our colleagues on the other side of Highway 85 were up to, so when I heard about the "Next Gen PayPal platform" session, I figured I'd check it out.
Now I have to say, I have been in so many "Next Generation ...." presentations that quite frankly I don't expect a lot when I attend one anymore. Human beings are simply not very good at predicting the future. This one however turned out much better than I expected.
For starter, Damon didn't have a presentation. Instead he opened with a story:
"... This blacksmith wanted to be the greatest archer in the world! Finally he decided to act on his dream and started looking for the greatest archer in the world to mentor and train him. He looked long and hard, and in one of this trips came across a tree with a target painted on it and a perfect dead-center shot. Right next to it, he saw another tree with a perfect shot. Then, tree after tree with targets painted on them and all with perfect shots in the center. "I have finally found the master," he though. He asked around to find the master archer. "He lives down in the woods some place," he was told. He went there and begged him to become his mentor and to teach him how he makes every shot a perfect shot. The master said, "It is easy son: I shoot arrows randomly and wherever they land I paint a target around them!"
Made perfect sense! He wants to see where the arrows land so that he can paint his target around them for the next year. It was clear this was not going to be another "Next Generation ...." I am happy to be here.
Just one thing, why didn't I think of that?
Damon's whole team was also there with a lot of Post-It Notes and Pens! They distributed Sticky notes among the attendees and ask people to write down what they would like to see.
The easel papers were filling up with sticky notes. Granted some of them were funny, but there were plenty of interesting ideas. Here is sample:
- Better integration without redirect to PayPal: I'd love it and we get the same request at eBay, but there are security ramifications that are not simple to solve for now.
- Support for Micropayment
- Better and wider International presence
- Ability to update tracking
- More features for donate button
- Shopping Cart for Multiple-Vendors
- Widgets
No elaboration from the originator, and I don't want to speculate what they meant. However there is a need for generic Payment APIs for the Widget/Gadget universe and PayPal certainly has something to contribute there. Open Source community, including Open Social, is working on such APIs, and PayPal should make sure its voice is heard.
- Password-free authentication login
I would love that. Technologies exist but none is compelling to consumers yet.
- Better Sandbox
Amen! We get that all the time as well. Sandbox is part of developer product development lifecycle. We have a responsibility to make sure it is up-to-date, available, and robust.
- Project Echo for PayPal
Now we are talking! We have asked our PayPal colleagues to write a few apps for Selling Manager Pro too.
- PayPal on all gaming platforms including XBox, PS2 and WII.
- Payroll processing
Is PayPal really going there? But this is what I love about these sessions: You can figure out what developers are working on, and decide what is the best way to add value to what they do.
- Multi-user account with different authorization level
We get the same request all the time, as both eBay and PayPal moving up the market from individual users to business users we both have to have this.
- Much more robust affiliate program
- A developer shouts, "When I find a bug in your API, fix it and fix it fast! (I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! Google it, if you are not familiar with the movie Casablanca. )
- Marketplace for developers to sell tools and code to other developers
Here is an interesting one from Damon himself:
- Payment processing on devices like GPS, TV, Game Consoles, Kindle (maybe not!), Washing Machine, Vending Machines, Slot machines, Gas Stations.
Wow, I wonder what is the size of those markets and how PayPal would penetrate all those devices, but isn't what developer community exactly for?
I see this theme all over the web: Platforms are not longer about enabling apps, they are about enabling businesses. It's the central theme for Selling Manager Applications (formerly Echo).
Finally, I got my hat into the ring too:
- How about you guys do multi-tier commission payment so people (like eBay) can administer multi-tier affiliations much easier e.g. payout both publisher and widget developers when a publisher embed a widget on their site?
- How about if PayPal told me what the risk profile of a transaction would be and what might make it safer BEFORE processing the payment?
Someone suggested using the PayPal email ID as identity and reputation outside PayPal, like when you visit an Open House.
Now that is really interesting: This house is shown only to eBay or PayPal user with minimum of 50 feedback!
Here is a good one: Lower transaction cost for lower merchant risk.
And finally what I was waiting for, Proximity Payments thru mobile phone, PayPal's original business plan.
All in all this was a very eye-opening session for me, a lot of good ideas from developers and a lot of entertainment. Damon deserves credit for conducting the meeting in a professional way and effectively soliciting ideas.
I wonder how many of these ideas they really get to do, but I am sure it helps a lot with coming up with their road map. eBay should probably do something like this next year (or maybe tomorrow in our feedback session).
- Farhang
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