Schalk: Hello, my name is Chris Schalk.
I'm a Google Developer Advocate
and I'm here at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco.
And I'm here with Farhang Kassei,
and he's going to tell us a little bit about
the platform that they just announced.
So feel free to introduce yourself and tell us
a little bit about the platform that you announced today.
Kassei: Hi, Chris. My name is Farhang Kassei.
And we are here today
to announce that eBay is opening up Selling Manager
to all developers.
And Selling Manager is the application
where all the sellers go
to manage their business on eBay.
And we are opening it up
so that you can deploy your applications,
develop your applications,
and deploy directly to the Selling Manager.
Schalk: Cool.
So can you describe a little bit of, like,
some of the technical details behind your implementation?
Such as how-- how does it use
OpenSocial's gadget technology?
Kassei: So we are opening up
Selling Manager to developers,
and the applications that developers deploy
on Selling Manager
are based on the gadget's specification.
And this is the same extensibility technology
that is underlying OpenSocial.
Schalk: And so can you explain
maybe some of the reasons why that you felt
standardizing on gadget technology
to base your implementation on--
like, why was that, like, the right choice for you
in your particular case?
Kassei: That--that's a very good question
'cause we have a-- we had a very lively debate
about this at eBay.
Gadget technology, as you know,
provides the--what I call the "so-called plumbing"
underneath all applications' infrastructure--
stuff like security, configuration,
resource management, internationalization,
portable deployment-- things like that
that are not terribly interesting
to the application layer
but are extremely vital.
And we could have actually duplicated
and developed it ourselves,
but we think it's to the benefit of everyone
in the Internet community
to actually help one standard to shape up
around all of these application infrastructure components.
So we thought that we're going to use gadget technology
and we help develop the spec
towards where it actually enables
all classes of application to be developed--
not only social applications
but also commerce applications as well.
Schalk: Great, thanks.
Can you explain a little bit, like, also
how you use the Apache Shindig technology,
and how you actually took that
and created, actually, your product.
Can you explain a little bit of that process?
Kassei: So Apache Shindig,
for people who might not be familiar with it,
is an open-source reference implementation of gadget.
And when we decided to use gadget
and to support gadget,
it gave us, actually, a boost
for rapid deployment and development.
We adopted Apache Shindig
and we started, obviously, changing some of the code.
And Shindig's actually designed
to be customizable per deployment.
So we changed some stuff, mostly around the periphery--
security stuff, some configuration stuff,
some of the caching.
But using Apache Shindig actually gave us
a pretty good boost in our development.
Schalk: Mm-hmm.
And how would you describe the experience
when working with some of the other developers
who actually commit code to Shindig?
Kassei: So Shindig is an open-source application,
and it has a vibrant community around it.
And we had the benefit
of actually using their contributions,
and they constantly developed
different features on Shindig.
They constantly improved different aspects of it
including performance and security.
So that was another attractive aspect
of using an open-source paradigm
that led us-- chose Apache Shindig.
Schalk: Mm-hmm. So let me shift gears a little bit.
Kind of stepping away from the pure technology
but also speaking, like, in plain language,
how will your OpenSocial implementation
now both improve the eBay PowerSeller
as well as a gadget developer's experience overall?
Kassei: So whatever helps eBay sellers
helps eBay.
And these gadgets are actually food
for the commercial applications,
and they're going to help our sellers--
PowerSellers or otherwise--
to improve their efficiency
and improve their productivity.
So in this case, we think
it's going to be a good help to our sellers.
Schalk: Mm-hmm.
And how about from the gadget developer's perspective?
How's the environment going to help that?
Kassei: Oh, from the gadget developer's perspective,
this is a very good opportunity
to actually access a qualified large customer base.
We're actually willing to pay
for any tools or any application
that helps them be more productive
or more competitive.
So to my knowledge,
this is one of the very few
solid money-making opportunities
that the gadget community has out there.
And they can deploy the applications.
It's very easy.
They're already familiar with how to develop gadgets
and they can make it available
to a large community of eBay sellers.
Schalk: Mm-hmm. Great.
So how do you see your new OpenSocial implementation
affecting eBay's overall business?
Like, what's the net effect that you expect to see?
Kassei: As I mentioned,
anything that helps our sellers helps eBay.
And we definitely are enabling the development community,
the gadget development community,
to help eBay sellers drive their growth
by increasing their productivity.
So in that case, we think
it's going to help our sellers that way.
Schalk: Great, great.
So getting back to gadget technology--
so right now you have it
in your Selling Manager implementation.
Do you expect to see gadgets
in other portions on eBay's site?
Kassei: Let me ask you the question.
What do you think we should do
next with our gadgets?
Schalk: Sure.
I could see a number of ways
where you could-- for example,
I could see gadget applications themselves
being created, which could then
exist on other OpenSocial containers
and--providing kind of like a front doorstep
that would allow anyone out there
who has, like, their comfortable social environment
to then quickly jump into the eBay experience.
That's one thing that I could see.
Now that you're a container,
you could easily facilitate that with your implementation.
Kassei: That's another reason that we chose gadgets.
That's the beauty of it.
Exactly what you said--
which is a technology that is well-understood
by everyone-- including, for example, you--
and based on that, you start thinking
about, "What other possibilities are there?"
And some of them you might need eBay help to implement it.
And most of them actually,
you don't even need eBay help.
And you can actually implement these gadgets,
and eBay is a container,
and your gadgets can do
anything that is useful to our seller community.
Schalk: Great.
So I'd like to wrap it up and if--
before we finish up, if you could tell me--
what are the next steps a gadget developer can take
to learn about how to develop on your platform?
Kassei: So the gadget developers
can visit developer.ebay.com/web20.
The URL again is developer.ebay.com/web20.
And you'll find all the information
to get started over there.
You can sign up to become an eBay developer,
and if you're already an eBay developer,
you'll find all the information
to learn about the Selling Manger Apps--
how to develop one, and how to deploy one on eBay.
Schalk: Great.
Well, I'd like to take this opportunity
to thank you again.
It's been a pleasure working with you.
And I'd also like to congratulate you
on the launch of your new gadget container implementation
for Selling Manager Apps.
And--and again, hats off to you guys.
Kassei: Thank you.
We are very excited about it as well.
And thank you for inviting us
and letting us tell people about this opportunity.
Schalk: Great. Thanks.
Kassei: Thank you.