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The eBay Developers Program gang is freshly back from Web 2.0 Expo New York last week, showing off the eBay and PayPal platforms to web developers and designers. Check out InformationWeek and VentureBeat for what our fearless leader, Max Mancini, had to say from the show floor.

Visitors to our booth got to learn about eBay Developers Program, PayPal certifications, VUVOX, eBay Desktop, Firefox Companion for eBay and more. Developers building applications with the eBay API platform, such as Glaxstar, EffectiveUI, JDT Technologies, Aduci and Payloadz added their perspective and testimonials about their experience with the eBay development and PayPal certification process.

Rolf Skyberg packed his session on Platform Wars: A Brief History on Wednesday, and we also got to catch up with developers like WatchCount.com (a.k.a. helios825 on the Developer Forums), WidgetBucks/Mpire and Guru of Sales, who stopped by our booth as well.

If you missed us in New York, catch us in San Francisco, November 16-19 at Adobe MAX. eBay picked up a couple of coveted MAX Awards last year, and we're looking forward to meeting Flex, Flash, AIR and ColdFusion developers again this year!

-Delyn

Photo Credits to Delyn Simons and Lanz Tsang

I had a lot of connectivity issues at the hotel in Miami, plus my laptop battery chose this day to give up the ghost, so I wasn't able to blog live from yesterday's eBay In Person. However I took a lot of notes and will be back with more information from the event over the next few days. Meanwhile here are some high-level details:

We had a decent turnout -- about 175- 200 people, mostly local sellers from the Miami area, attended. Some people have criticized eBay on the Chatter discussion board for not advertising eBay In Person Miami enough. To be quite frank, we kinda wanted it that way because it was the very first full-day eBay In Person (our previous events, for example San Francisco, were only for a couple of hours). So it was a test run for us and we figured that a more low-key event would help us refine the format for future eBay In Person meets.

A lot of the attendees were relatively new sellers, although we had a large proportion of experienced/veteran sellers as well. A few people didn't seem to know the details of the recent changes (in fact about a dozen or so people said they hadn't even heard of DSRs!) but for most attendees the focus was finding out more about the recent changes as well as understanding how best they could adapt their individual businesses on eBay. We did get a lot of questions (and from a few people criticism) about the changes. However it was also very heartening to note that many sellers are feeling positive about the changes, especially the new "35 cents for 30 days" model.

The day began with opening remarks from Griff, followed by people breaking out into one of three educational sessions:

• Become an Overnight "Star" Seller; Boost Your Customer Service, DSRs, and Feedback
• Catching Customers: Improve Your Visibility in Search Results
• Shipping 101

The sessions rotated throughout the day so everyone could get a chance to attend all three. I felt the sessions were a good mix of eBay going into more details into strategies sellers can use to adapt to changes on eBay and to online selling overall, and people asking questions about eBay's rationale for the changes and sharing their perceptions about how they themselves were affected.

I'd say the overall mood was very pragmatic. Most sellers seem to agree that bad buyer experiences caused by a minority of bad sellers on eBay, combined with buyers having many other shopping destination choices have led to the changes that were introduced recently. Most were also concerned about the state of the U.S. economy and were worried that it could hurt their businesses even more. Of course there was some criticism of eBay as well (I would be disappointed if our usually vocal Community chose to stay quiet during one of these events), but there were also many positive stories. Several sellers walked up to the microphones to let us (and their fellow-sellers) know how their DSRs had improved or how the fixed price format was working for them. (Watch out for a cool video story soon).

I'll be back with more details in the next few days. Meanwhile here are some pictures from eBay In Person Miami.

Griff and the eBay panelists:

Attendees lining up to register:

1-on-1 (or 2-on-1) attention for an attendee:

The crowd settling down for Griff's opening remarks:

Josh Loftus, Senior Director, FInding, conducts a session on How to Improve Your Visibility in Search Results:

Kristina Klausen, Senior Director, Shipping, conducts one of her sessions:

Griff is always ready for a photo-op:

It wouldn't be an eBay event without some fans making an eBay statement (Helen Espinosa, left, and Lourdes Elvira, right):