eBay announced the winners of the 2010 Star Developer Awards this morning. The awards recognize third-party developers who have driven innovative solutions that help streamline the selling process on eBay.

2010 award winners include:

eCommSource™ by Cloud Conversion™, a complete customer relationship management (CRM) solution that enables eBay sellers around the world to manage all customer service operations from a single salesforce.com Service Cloud account. Available on the salesforce.com AppExchange

·Early Adopter: Quantity Manager, an automatic listing management tool for eBay sellers, and Price Spectre, a dynamic pricing agent that monitors competitors’ prices and adjusts a subscriber’s listing price accordingly, by NullApps

·Most Innovative: Outright, an application that automates eBay sales and expense tracking for more efficient tax preparation, by Outright

·Rapid Evolution: Vendio Reviser, a bulk revision solution for updating large numbers of live listings, by Vendio

·Service to the Developer Community: David Kronenwetter (exdwh) of Experimenter’s Discount Warehouse

You can read the full press release HERE to see a full list of winners and runner-ups.

I’m down here in San Jose live-blogging the 2010 eBay Developers Conference. I plan on updating here on the blog as I find the time but for the most part I’ll be live-blogging via Twitter. You can follow that live HERE. You can see the full conversation coming out DevCon by searching #ebaydc10.

Cheers,
RBH

I’ll be live-blogging from next week’s eBay Developer’s Conference and trying to capture as much video footage to share with you as I can. I’m setting up a Twitter list that breaks down all the different folks that will be providing updates coming out of the conference.

I managed to get added to the agenda for the last session on the second day – I wonder if I’ll be able to serve beer to everyone who attends. Here is how it’s broken down on the eBay DevCon schedule:

BLOGGING FOR BRANDS: BARTENDING WITH INFORMATION
Thursday, June 10
1:30 – 2:20pm
eBay is, in essence, the first social network on the Web. Social media is in its DNA. Starting with the eBay Developer Blog back in 2004 and through today there are a variety of official company blogs that address key aspects of its business, community and technologies.

eBay Ink, the official corporate blog, is a unique social media forum that allows the company’s management and users to engage in candid conversations about the company’s business operations. Evolving from a traditional corporate blog into a “Life Stream,” eBay Ink acts as a one-stop repository of online conversation and dialogue about the entire company and its adjacencies. In this session, find out how eBay’s innovative use of Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs and Twitter, has given its external audience not only a voice but also a seat at the company’s management table.

In this session, eBay’s chief blogger, Richard Brewer-Hay, will provide a detailed case study behind the growth of social media innovation at the company. Including, but not limited to, the emergence of live-blogging via Twitter and eBay Ink. He will also address the development and implementation of social media guidelines and best practices.

You will learn:
* How eBay Ink gives users and outside influencers an authentic look at eBay’s internal operations
* The critical role that eBay employees play in posting content and responding to outside audiences across a number of blogging platforms
* How the eBay Ink Blog and Twitter feed provide transparency and remain externally credible to audiences

I’ll share the presentation here after the conference.

Cheers,
RBH

The 2010 eBay Developers Conference is just around the corner (June 8 – 10) and it’s looking like a great lineup of speakers and presentations…

* Renee J. James, Sr. VP and GM, Software and Services Group, Intel Corporation
* Amitabh Srivastava, Sr. VP, Server and Cloud Division, Microsoft
* Martyn Mallick, Sr. Director, Strategic Alliance, Research in Motion
* Gene Alvarez, Research VP, Gartner
* John Donahoe, President and CEO, eBay Inc.

For a full list of keynote presenters, CLICK HERE

To join in the conversation on Twitter, use the hashtag #ebaydc10 and follow @ebaydevcon for updates. Be sure to subscribe to the eBay Developers Program blog too!

eBay Dev Con 2010 Quick Links
For a full schedule CLICK HERE
For a full list of sessions CLICK HERE
For a full break down of registration deals, CLICK HERE
For hotel and travel information (including codes for discounted room rates), CLICK HERE

Who Should Attend?
* Savvy developers who want to create better, more profitable applications for eBay buyers and sellers
* Innovative entrepreneurs who want to learn how to use eBay to grow their businesses
* Anyone who’s interested in learning the future of eBay and e-commerce in general

Cheers!
RBH

I wanted to double check the details around the eBay DevCon later this month, and noticed that the keynote speaker lineup is pretty impressive. In addition to speeches and presentations by John Donahoe, eBay President and CEO; Mark Carges, CTO and SVP of Global Platform at eBay; and Lorrie Norrington, President of eBay Marketplaces; the conference also boasts the following Silicon Valley visionaries and venture capitalists:

- John Hagel, Co-Chairman, Deloitte Center for the Edge
- Mark Gorenberg, Managing Director, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
- Rob Hayes, Partner, First Round Capital
- Sergio Monsalve, Partner, Norwest Venture Partners
- Ravi Mohan, Managing Director, Shasta Ventures
- Charlene Li, Founder, Altimeter Group

Looking at the schedule, the only problem I seem to be faced with is determining which of the tracks to attend at a given time. For those of you unable to go, take a look and let me know which presentations are of most interest so I can live-blog from those via Twitter.

I’ll be live-blogging all day June 16 and 17. Let me know if you’re attending so we can connect.

If you haven’t registered yet, you still can do by clicking here.

Cheers!
RBH

Conference Highlights
* Education – You’ve got skills. We’ve got hundreds of ways to take them to the next level, including sessions, labs, training and our impromptu “hallway” track where you swap tips and tricks with your peers. Don’t forget your laptop!
* Inspiration – Want to know where our industry is going? We’ve lined up several e-commerce visionaries, including some of our senior executives and other industry leaders, who will share their insights and inspire you to greater heights.
* Networking – Big ideas often start with a conversation over a frosty beverage and some sketches on the back of a napkin. That’s why we have tons of networking opportunities, including our ever-popular Beer Bash and PayPal After Party!
* Cool tools! – Need a competitive advantage, or just an excuse to check out all the latest gadgets? We’ve got hundreds of developer support tools and solutions on display that can help you be more productive.

You can check out the breakdown of the conference schedule here.

Because this year’s conference is taking place at the eBay North Campus in San Jose I’m also hoping to organize a meet up for folks near our offices so we can catch up over a beer or two. It will be great to put names to faces.

Cheers,
RBH

Personally, I found the content and discussions at the DevCon last Summer in Chicago the highlight of my trip (although the Feedback panel discussion was great to see of course). This time around, given that it’s here at eBay HQ, I’m hoping to be able to meet some of the developers and folks in-person that have emailed me over the past year about Ink. Plus, as Chris Dawson over on TameBay points out, the weather in San Jose in June is pretty nice indeed.

Cheers,
RBH

Alan was indeed attending as a presenter. He and eBay Mobile product manager, Ken Sun, were fortunate enough to demo their brand-new application to Steve Jobs last week and he liked it so much he invited them to do the same earlier today during his keynote in San Francisco this morning. I managed to get on the phone with Ken before he took the stage:

“The iPhone has quickly become the #1 mobile device for accessing eBay and while the current Safari experience is great, we wanted to create the best mobile experience for our customers,” said Ken Sun. “5 weeks ago we decided to create this application. The ease of developing with the iPhone SDK helped us to quickly integrate with eBay’s web services.”

He also provided me with some screen shots so I could share with readers:

HOME: Immediate access to search and “My eBay at a glance” so buyers and sellers can stay on top of their auctions throughout the day. It is also personalized with the user’s MyWorld avatar:

My eBay: Buyers and sellers can view the items they’re tracking so they can easily find the ones they need to take action on:

Search Results: Search the entire inventory of auctions and fixed-price items available on eBay.com. A refine button will be available to allow buyers to zero-in on what they’re looking for by category, price or auction type:

The bad news? The eBay application won’t be available until the App Store launches later this Summer. The good news? It will be available for free when it does.

I plan on catching up with Ken this week to find out what it was like to demo for Steve Jobs and what’s involved in taking a concept from idea to reality in just 5 weeks.

Cheers,
RBH