eBay Acquires Positronic Search Firm

In case you blinked, eBay corporate blogger and all-around good guy Richard Brewer-Hay last week confirmed blogging reports that Christopher Payne, co-founder of Positronic , had joined eBay as VP of Search. Additionally, Positronic co-founder Dane Glasgow has joined eBay as VP of Engineering. eBay acquired Positronic to help with efforts at leveraging machine learning to provide a more predictive and compelling customer experience.

Founded in 2007, Positronic has created predictive models and a machine learning platform that is vital for developments in search-based initiatives.

Breaking news by blog and LinkedIn profile update - news travels fast in a social Web world, folks.

- Delyn

You may rely on it: Winners of our 8th anniversary giveaway

Back in November, we celebrated the eBay Developers Program's 8th anniversary by giving away eight Magic 8 balls to members of our developer community - the developers who are behind the success of the eBay API platform. For these eight lucky developers, our Magic 8-ball here at the office says "It is certain".

1. Avi Lang of Home and Stone
2. Mathew Keister of Seamless Development
3. Jason Hodges of The BHW Group
4. Nick Parker of uShip.com
5. Adrian Sevitz of vzaar
6. Geoff Yaworski of inetFeedback.com
7. Michael Linke of Foto-Markt
8. E.J. Bantz of Seller Machine

(One of our winners, vzaar, even created a short video of themselves putting their Magic 8 ball to good use around the office we just had to share) --

From all of us here at the eBay Developers Program, Happy New Year and a we hope you are off to a great start to your 2009!

- Delyn

Photo attribution to StreetFly_JZ

We heard your requests! Several Shopping API enhancements

FindItemsAdvanced:

FindItemsAdvanced now supports the shipping cost calculations for specified country and postal codes

You can enter a ShippingLocation and PostalCode for that country (similar to the web flow) and get a calculated shipping cost in your FindItemsAdvanced search result.

Currently FindItemsAdvanced uses PostalCode to calculate the shipping fee. We are keeping the original logic for domestic shipping calculation, and are adding ShippingLocation for the international shipping calculation.

FindItemsAdvanced now returns up to 12 picture URLs associated with an item

FindItemsAdvanced did not contain the PictureURL field (to get this we need to call GetItem separately). Now, if you request the PictureURL field it will be returned in the FindItemsAdvanced response.

There can be repeated PictureURL nodes, up to a max of 12 pictures per item.

FindItemsAdvanced now supports additional ItemLocatedIn filters

Earlier it was not possible to define Worldwide or Europe in ItemsAvailableTo and ItemsLocatedIn in the FindItemsAdvanced call. The new ItemLocationRegion supports the same additional country filters as the web site.

FindItemsAdvanced has additional Filtering options for "Listings Mode" (When * queries and CategoryID is used)

You can request listings mode with

• BidCountMax filter
• BidCountMin filter
• CharityID filter
• ItemsAvailableTo filter
• ItemsLocatedIn filter
• ProductID filter
• SellerBusinessType filter
• StoreName filter
• StoreSearch filter
• Quantity filter
• QuantityOperator filter
• SortOrder filter

FindHalfProducts:

FindHalfProducts no longer returns duplicates when searching for used items

We have updated this call to no longer return duplicate items when you search using HalfItemCondition=Used.

FindHalfProducts now allows you to include ProductSearchURL in the request

New tag, ProductSearchURL, for product search results that corresponds to your search request. This is similar to ItemSearchURL in FindItems and FindItemsAdvanced.

eBay SDK for DotNET v595 full release now available

The eBay SDK for DotNET v595 full release is now available.

This full release includes support for Microsoft's .NET 2.0 Framework, the UploadSiteHostedPictures Trading API call, Support for ProPay, and updates to the attributeDemo sample, as well as with the features and fields available in version 595 of the Trading WSDL. For more information about WSDL version 595, see the Trading API Release Notes (which contain tables showing schema changes that occur every two weeks).

Before using the SDK, please read the DotNET Readme file.

Please note that upgrades to an SDK should always be done in a test environment, and then transferred to a production environment.

eBay SDK for Java v595 full releases now available

The eBay SDK 595 for Java full releases are now available. You can download the JAX-WS version, the Axis 1.1 (for JDK 1.5) version, or the Axis 1.1 (for JDK 1.4) version. However, we recommend that you use the JAX-WS version because support for the Axis 1.1 versions will be discontinued.

This full release includes support for the UploadSiteHostedPictures Trading API call, Support for ProPay, and updates to the attributeDemo sample, as well as with the features and fields available in version 595 of the Trading WSDL. For more information about WSDL version 595, see the Trading API Release Notes (which contain tables showing schema changes that occur every two weeks).

Before using the SDK, please read the JAX-WS Readme file or the JAX-WS Readme file and the Axis to JAX-WS Migration Guide.

Please note that upgrades to an SDK should always be done in a test environment, and then transferred to a production environment.

Early January 2009 Item Specifics Changes

We plan the following changes to the eBay Item Specifics for Video Game Systems in early January:

• Adding "Refurbished" to Condition.
• Removing Xbox 360 Elite as a separate value from Xbox 360.

Early January 2009 Category Changes

The category structure will be updated in early January based on feedback received from the eBay Community and from experts in the affected fields.
If you sell in these areas, please be sure to take a look at the new category structure on Seller Central. Changes this month are primarily generated from community suggestions.

Categories with updates are:

• Antiques
• Business & Industrial
• Cameras & Photo
• Cell Phones & PDAs
• Clothing Shoes & Accessories
• Coins & Paper Money
• Collectibles
• Computers
• Crafts
• Dolls & Bears
• eBay Motors
• Electronics
• Entertainment Memorabilia
• Health & Beauty
• Home & Garden
• Jewelry & Watches
• Pottery & Glass
• Sporting Goods
• Stamps
• Toys & Hobbies

We appreciate your input on how we can make categories better for everyone. Please submit categories suggestions here. Thanks again to all our members who contributed to these changes!

2009 Changes to Singapore, Hong Kong and India Affiliate Programs

We are making some changes to several of our Asia programs. We have decided to close down the Singapore and Hong Kong affiliate programs as of February 1, 2009, and make India a more limited invite-only program.

Our Singapore and Hong Kong sites are increasingly focusing their marketing efforts on bringing more sellers, rather than buyers, to their programs. Given that eBay Partner Network is today primarily a buyer-acquisition focused network, we've decided it was best to close these programs for now, until we can better support seller efforts.

Beginning February 1, 2009, we will begin redirecting traffic from geo-targeted affiliate links destined for eBay Hong Kong and eBay Singapore back to eBay.com. Publishers currently geo-targeting traffic to these sites will not have to do anything differently, since we will re-direct this traffic automatically. However, please note that creatives for Hong Kong and Singapore will no longer be available in the eBay Partner Network interface. Publishers not working with these programs will not be affected.

We have also decided to make India a limited invitation-only program. We want to focus in the next few months on growing the Indian program through larger affiliates that have established track records in India or in other emerging countries. Publishers currently accepted in the Indian program will not be affected and will be able to continue to promote the Indian site. New publishers joining eBay Partner Network will no longer see the Indian program as an option upon sign-in and will have to apply separately by contacting customer service if they want to promote the Indian Program.

We expect a minimum impact from these changes given the small number of affiliates currently driving traffic to these countries. If you have concerns or experience any problems during the transition please be sure to let us know by contacting customer service.

The eBay Partner Network

2008 Tax Info for eBay Affiliates

At the end of January 2009, you will receive a 1099 tax form from eBay Partner Network if:

• You are a United States citizen or legal resident and
• You had $600 reportable tax activity for the year 2008.

eBay Partner Network Forms 1099-MISC will be postmarked via US Postal Service no later than January 31, 2009.

To ensure the accuracy of the 1099-MISC Forms that you will receive from eBay Partner Network, please log-in to your eBay Partner Network account and make sure that you have entered the latest and correct information for your account:

• Your name
• Tax ID
• Most recent address

You can find additional information about the 1099-MISC Form from the IRS website, www.irs.gov.

Please note that eBay Partner Network is not authorized to give you any tax advice. Please reach out to a tax advisor to get qualified advice about your taxes.

Terapeak Announces New Market Research Tool - Value Track

Terapeak, an eBay Certified Provider providing eBay market research, has announced a beta launch for their new tool, Value Track.

Value Track will allow an eBay seller to save or "track" their eBay searches and then generates reports based on:

• Track trends in a category over week-by-week
• Track product movement
• Track product pricing

Value Track automates your eBay research process. Information is updated automatically and displayed in a format similar to a stock ticker.

Terapeak provides robust market research tools through the eBay Market Data program.

The eBay Market Data program offers rich consumer insight data allowing eBay Developers the opportunity to innovate and build research solutions like cross-border research tools, shopper analysis, intelligent cross-merchandising & listing solutions, and more.  Click here to learn more about the eBay Market Data Program.

Click here for more information on Value Track and how to be part of the beta test.