eBay Looks to Developer Network to Drive Sales

[mandy]

Roughly 2 billion items a year pass through eBay, and the company is looking to outside partners and ISVs to help push that number even higher.

The Internet auction Goliath now counts 30,000 members in its developer program, and one-quarter of its listings come through third-party tools tapping into its Web services interfaces...

One major change to eBay's developer program was made in November, when the San Jose, Calif.-based company eliminated the fees it had charged for access to its APIs. Vendio's Sales pointed to that change as an illustration of both the positive and challenging aspects of building a business around eBay. While the API fee elimination immediately spared Vendio a significant annual expense, it also brought a swarm of new ISVs to eBay, increasing competition, Sales said. "We've seen some impact on our margins," he said...

full article: http://www.informationweek.com/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=191800642&subSection=Best+Practices

[misteroriginal]

I joined last year, but haven't done anything with it. eBay is so perfect, I couldn't think of anything to develop.