Vinny Lingham's Blog

Michael Arrington sums it up quite nicely, so here is the short version:

Not much commentary is needed on this one. Here’s what happened:

1. eBay doesn’t allow merchants to use Google Checkout to settle eBay transactions. Google invited eBay online sellers attending eBay Live! in Boston this week to a party that they called the Google Checkout Freedom Party.
2. eBay decides to pull all U.S. advertising on Google.
3. Google backs down, cancels the party.
4. Google looks like a complete wimp; eBay looks like a bully.

The party appeared to be nothing more than Google poking a little fun at eBay’s restrictive policies. eBay hit back with the biggest weapon they had, suggesting that tension between the companies goes very deep.

That was a seriously good laugh this morning!

So the big question… who’s “Click” is bigger? Adam Viener does a quick roundup on Revenews as well.

Bottom line, is that Google & eBay are becoming more competitive with each other every day and such a conflict was inevitable, to answer my question though, I would argue that Google has a much bigger “Click” and if they REALLY had to pull out all the stops, they could easily “improve” their algorithms to factor in a lot of the “Search Engine Optimization” work that eBay have done across their companies – and users would find that eBay would appear a lot lower in the natural results.

But then let’s remember that Google’s motto is “Do No (Relative) Evil”!

I managed to get the 2nd official Beta invite to eBay’s San Dimas Project, courtesy of Product Manager, Alan Lewis.

San Dimas is a Desktop Application that can be used whilst offline in order to manage your eBay activity (track items, etc). San Dimas is downloadable, which means that all the graphics are stored locally and
this is especially handy in 3rd world countries where Internet Bandwidth is a problem, as the app fetches minimal information from eBay’s servers. You can place bids, track items, search, view & a whole lot more.

It’s been built on the Beta version of Adobe’s Apollo – which is currently in beta. There have been many misconceptions over Apollo, Microsoft’s Silverlight & AJAX – and without going into details, all I will say that they are 3 very different technologies – none of which, in my opinion, will negate the other at this
point. AJAX is still the predominant standard for Web Based Applications within a browser.

San Dimas is basically a giant desktop widget, that allows you to access multiple sections of eBay’s site – without being in a browser. This what I would call a “Rich Desktop Application” (RDA) which is very much unlike Synthasite, which is a “Rich Internet Application” (RIA).

Given that San Dimas is a desktop application – and very lightweight at that – it allows eBay to bundle what is effectively their Website on the Desktop with other downloadable applications, as well as partnering with companies like Dell for distribution onto New PC desktops – this opens up a new world of opportunity. This is purely my own thoughts, as eBay have not announced distribution channels.

Apollo eliminates the need for a Web Browser – and I’m expecting the world’s first 3D Website to be built using Apollo!

Currently, however, the Right Click function gives the user no additional options in the Beta – but I’m told that in the full release, that will change.

To develop San Dimas, eBay worked with a company called Effective UI, based in Colorado – which started out with 2 Developers & 1 Designer – and the team has grown to 4 Developers & 1 Designer.

Hats off to eBay for pushing the envelope here and getting straight onto the Desktop! This will also help them steer customers away from searching Google and having to pay on a PPC basis…how long until the rest of the marketers out there catch on?

This is a big surprise, in some ways, but due to the fact that Google is so efficient at monetizing international inventory (where the other’s are not), eBay has partnered with Google on this front.  This is an interesting move, and may squash rumours of an impending Yahoo/eBay merger.  I cannot see the logic in this, except for revenues that eBay needs from advertising – because Google is becoming more and more of an eBay competitor.  Time wil tell…

Presented solo by:

Alan Lewis (eBay Technical Evangelist)

“Web Services provide great opportunities for innovative affiliates to make money”

•    What is the eBay Affiliate Program?

The eBay Affiliate Program is a community of developers, webmasters and entrepreneurs who get paid to promote Ebay.

Originally launched in the US in 2001, there are now programs in over 25 countries worldwide.

Top 100 Global Affiliates make an average of more than $500,000 a year.

•    Affiliates and the eBay API

o    Data

Knowledge is Power.  You can use the eBay API to extract data and information around their marketplace, like Keyword Market Trends, Supply/Demand Discrepancies

Key Calls:
-    GetSearchResults
-    GetPopularKeywords
-    GetRelatedKeywords (Upcoming)
-    GetContextualKeywords (Beta)

Historical Data
- Not free, but worth the money – through their data partner, DataUnison.

o    Content

Quality Content is available at a low cost by using the API.

Shopping Comparison:  Use eBay Search and listing data to understand pricing trends for products. Display items with a low price on your site for frugal shoppers.

Key Calls:
-    GetSearchResults
-    GetCategories

eBay is one of the largest source of free content on the web.

You can also use the RSS Feed Generator from eBay, which has customizable feeds embedded in eBay Advanced Search technology appended with the affiliate tracking information.

Key Call:
-    GetSearchResults

o    Communications

Instant Messenger

Concept:

Search/Browsing
Alerts (Price, Listing)
Contextual

Key Calls:
-    GetSearchResults
-    Instant Messenger API  (provided by the IM platform)

Email is already a huge driver of eCommerce Revenue…IM could be to.

Mobile Technologies

Concept:

Search/Browsing
Bidding
Alerts: Text/Call

Key Calls:
-    GetSearchResults
-    PlaceOffer (Upcoming Pilot)

Takeaway:

-    Take advantage of the rapidly expanding mobile marke

o    Platform

eBay exposes the eBay platform, for free.

Concept:
-    eBay Widgets
-    Television Set Top Box
-    Desktop Search Tool
KeyCalls:
-    GetSearchResults, GetItem, GetMyeBayBuying

eBay is extending the reach of the eBay Platform to reach a broader audience in new/creative ways.

•    eBay Web Services Overview

eBay Developers Program started in 2001

Auction tools were already screen scraping, eBay wanted to standardize the data through XML.

47% of listings are through eBay Web Services (about half through 3rd parties)

30,000 members, who have created 2,200 live applications

Total number of calls in Q4: 8 Billions!!!

Buyer-oriented web services started in 2003

Features of eBay Web Services:

o    Search
o    Listing Items
o    Transaction/Order Management
o    My eBay
o    eBay Stores
o    Feedback management
o    Watch list
o    Anything that you can do through the eBay site

RSS:

Very low-tech API – search terms and options are specified in the feed URL
Similar to REST API , but with standardized schema (non-eBay specific)
Look at the bottom of any eBay search page for this.
RSS Feeds can be affiliate-enables too.

He also went into a lot of the stuff like AdContext from the eBay Developers Conference – so I’m not going to repeat that in this blog – just browse the categories on the right and look at the eBay category if you want more information.

Here are some nice photo’s from eBay Dev Con – sorry, didn’t have chance to tag or write everyone’s names in!