eBay opens platform further for outside developers
EBay, the giant auction site has opened up its platform so that third-party companies can build features that work with eBay in new ways.
It continues the trend seen across the Web, where successful companies are ones who develop a community of support around their platform, with Facebook’s momentum being the most recent powerful example of that.
It made the announcement at the eBay Developers Conference in Boston. The features include:
- eBay Shopping Web Services – a suite of faster, more responsive APIs that makes searching on eBay significantly faster and allows developers to easily create buying applications
- New JavaScript and Flash Developer Centers – making it easier for JavaScript developers to access the eBay Web Services platform; Flash Developer Center launches next month
- eBay Bidding API – qualified developers can enable bidding on eBay from anywhere beginning in Q3
- Call Limit increase – Production calls increased from 10,000 per month to ~150,000 per month (based on a daily limit of 5,000), allowing developers to rapidly scale up their applications
- eBay Client Alerts – lightweight, near real-time alerts about platform activity launches limited beta releasing in Q4
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
