Important Security Update: developer.ebay.com

This is Kumar Kandaswamy, and I manage the eBay Developers Program. I'd like you to read this important message about account safety.

The safety and security of the eBay Developers Program is a top priority. While we believe that people are basically good, we also must live with the reality that there are fraudsters out there who have made it their illicit "profession" to find ways to exploit others on the Internet.

Occasionally, fraudsters attempt to gain unauthorized access to the eBay Developers Program. eBay has recently identified a means by which someone could gain access to eBay Developers Program account information. This type of access DOES NOT allow the capture of financial or other sensitive information, such as credit card or bank account information or Social Security numbers.  Fortunately, we have not detected any unusual activity with any Developer account.

Out of an abundance of caution and to help ensure the security of the eBay Developers Program, we are requiring that all developers take the following steps:

• Take advantage of our new, stricter password standards and change your eBay Developers Program (developer.ebay.com) passwords. It is not necessary to change eBay (www.ebay.com) passwords.

If you believe you or your customers have been the victim of fraudulent activity, contact us immediately at developer-relations@ebay.com.

Sincerely,
Kumar Kandaswamy

Planned developer.ebay.com outage today

Update (Monday, 7/27/2009 12:40 pm PT): The outage is now over.

There is a planned developer.ebay.com site outage today while we do some technical maintenance. We expect the outage to last from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm PST.

For Summer 2009 Update news during the outage, please see the special eBay discussion board.

Thank you for your patience!

What Does the Future Hold? Find Out by Using the Dev Program API Calendar

You may have noticed that there's a lot of change happening on the eBay site. Stay informed about what is happening and when by checking out the eBay API Release Schedule calendar.

I've color coded the events to give you a sense of the likely impact. Here is what the colors mean:

Red = Must adopt by date. May break listing or other important functionality.
Yellow = Should adopt sometime. May be technically optional, but important to seller strategy.
Green = Nice to adopt. May still want to adopt as a differentiator.
Blue = Developer Program events like DevCon.

Note that the impact may be higher or lower for you depending on your individual application and business model.

Features

In the Month view, you get an overview of everything released or enforced that month.

Click the Agenda tab and you can use it as a checklist for adopting upcoming features.

 

Click the event and a detail balloon pops up. You can also copy that event to your own calendar.

 

And since it's powered by Google Calendar, you can subscribe to it just like any other public calendar. Subscribe just to the High Impact calendar, or subscribe to all of them.

Caveats

Dates are subject to change. But the benefit of the dynamic calendar is that you find out immediately after I do.

Where possible, exact dates are given. Otherwise, a window is given. And yes, sometimes that window is very big. As I get more information, I make the window narrower.

If there's a project you'd like to see on the calendar, email me at developer-webmaster@ebay.com. I won't always be able to find a release date for you, but I will do my best.

Find What You're Looking For: Better Developers Program Search

If you haven't noticed, we recently improved the search experience on the website. We hope that will make it easier to find the information you are looking for.

• Try a search for AddItem.
• Narrow your search down to a section of the site, or search everything.
• In the results, click [Type:] or [From:] to narrow the results further.
• If you want a whole document just on AddItem, try narrowing your search by doing the search on "TITLE," or sorting by " URL."

Tips:

• For blog searches: Search for "LASTMODIFIED" "DESC" to get the latest posts.
• If you want more results, do a search on "TEXT".

Try it out, and let me know what you think in the Comments.

NEW eBay Developers Program Marketing Handbook

Yes! Our redesigned eBay Developers Program Marketing Handbook is now live on the developer.ebay.com website, from the Business Benefits page and Marketing page.

The Marketing Handbook contains information about the marketing resources, such as our eBay Solutions Directory, bi-weekly Developer Newsletter, Developer blog, Compatible Application Check, Certified Provider Program, PR Guidelines, tips on getting your application top of mind in the eBay Community and more. This valuable marketing resource is complete with lots of tips for navigating the eBay landscape and marketing to your target audience on eBay.

Now getting at information about marketing your application to your eBay customers is easier than ever. Try out the Marketing Handbook today.

-Delyn

The South East Asia Developers Program website is here!

We are pleased to announce the launch of the South East Asia Developers Program hub. This new website has been designed for providing important program information to our developers located in South East Asia.

The SEA Developers Program launched their site with an exciting eBay & PayPal Developer Challenge for legal residents of Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand. eBay & PayPal developers are competing for up to $25,000 SGD in cash prizes.  To participate concept submissions must be made by August 23rd through the online registration form.  Winners will be announced September 26th, so check back here to see the cool applications that the winners came up with.

Through our South East Asia Developers Program hub, you will access useful information for jumpstarting the development phase of your application or learning more about program benefits. Technical support will continue to be provided in English by the US-based Developer Technical Support team. Members who have already joined the eBay Developers Program do not need to register again for the SEA one.

Updates to User Token Retrieval Flow, and New Application Settings Tool (Beta)

Update (8/14/2008): We've noticed a glitch with a couple of the new features in the Application Settings tool. Well, it IS a beta. We have temporarily disabled the ability to rename your keysets, and to add a custom logo and URL via the tool. You can still make those updates via the API. See this system announcement for information on this workaround, and status on the issue. We hope to have a fix in next week. We're sorry for any inconvenience!

We've made several improvements to the User Token retrieval process, and made it even easier for developers to configure and maintain their application-level settings. New features of the token retrieval process include:

• A new Application Settings Tool (Beta) is now available on http://developer.ebay.com for developers to view their stored user token, manage application-level Platform Notification and Client Notification settings, and customize the User Consent Page. Here's an example of a customized User Consent page:



Please try out the new tool at https://developer.ebay.com/DevZone/account/appsettings/ (requires login).

• Enhanced User Consent Page: There is a new way to set up the user consent flow for your application, and set other application-level settings.

The old user consent setup process involved making an RuName for your application using the SetRuName call, and then calling SetReturnURL to establish other application authentication settings. With the new Application Settings Tool, you set up your user consent flow by filling out a simple form.

The tool also lets you add your application logo and a URL to your User Consent Page, so users can learn more about your application.This improvement makes the User Consent Page more friendly to new users, helps reinforce your brand, and provides a way for users to find  more information about the application they are authorizing. 

For more information, please see http://developer.ebay.com/DevZone/XML/docs/WebHelp/GettingTokens-.html

• eBay UserID Verification Option: An ID Verification option has been added to the User Consent flow, for applications that only need to confirm an eBay member's UserID.  This option is supported at the RuName level, and allows an application to confirm an eBay member's UserID by taking the user through the standard User Consent Flow [also known as the Auth & Auth flow].  The application can use the new ConfirmIdentity call to verify the member's UserID that was provided at login time. 

For more information, please see http://developer.ebay.com/DevZone/XML/docs/WebHelp/GettingTokens-Getting_Tokens_for_Applications_with_Multiple_Users.html

We look forward to hear your feedback regarding this tool and will appreciate the suggestions and input.You could send your valuable feedback to developer-webmaster@ebay.com.

Why write your code from scratch? Try one of our updated code samples!

Our tireless Developer Technical Support team has just updated several samples in our Code Sample project. Give them a try and see if they can't save you some coding time:

• ASP
• C#
• Java
• Perl
• VB.NET
• VB6

Note that these samples are for the Trading API only. See the KnowledgeBase for Shopping API code samples.

Want to go global? Test your app with our international Sandbox users!

I'm delighted to announce that we have just made an update to our Sandbox User Registration tool that lets you create "true" international Sandbox users. These users have international home sites, addresses, and phone numbers. It's a great way to make sure that your app can handle the different requirements that international eBay sites might have.

Supported countries are:

• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium (Dutch)
• Belgium (French)
• Canada
• France
• Germany
• Netherlands
• Switzerland
• UK
• US

Support for Italy, India, and Spain will follow.

Have a Voice in the Next Version of the eBay Developer Website

The eBay Developers Program is looking for volunteers to help usability test the developer website at eBay's headquarters in San Jose. You will get to meet some of the "movers and shakers" in the eBay Developer Program, will help the developer website meet YOUR needs better, and will be compensated for your time (under 2 hours) with $150. Please contact our recruiter if you're interested and meet the following criteria.

1)   Web services/API developers with 1 - 3 years experience in at least
1 of the following languages: SOAP, XML, Java, PHP, .NET, JavaScript,
Perl, or Flash/Flex.

OR:

2)  Web services/API developers with 5+ years experience in at least 1
of the following languages: SOAP, XML, Java, PHP, .NET, JavaScript,
Perl, or Flash/Flex.

OR:

3) Webmaster, Internet developer, or Web entrepreneur with limited
programming experience but who use affiliate programs to generate income
to their Websites or Websites they support. Participant must be the
person in their organization who handles the technical implementation of
the affiliation interface on the Website.  This would include some
coding and understanding the details of the affiliate relationship.

Please contact Val with appropriate background information substantiating your experience, and tell us which of the three categories applies to you. Daytime flexibility is a must, and travel is not reimbursed.


740-988-1409
888-251-5911 ext. 4000