• June 17, 2008

EBay plans to allow third parties to integrate applications directly onto the site, which would give developers unprecedented access to eBay's community of professional sellers.

The move creates more opportunities for developers to market their tools and giving sellers a wider variety of sales optimization applications. San Jose, Calif.-based eBay shared this news for its community of 70,000 developers at the seventh annual eBay Developers Conference Monday in Chicago.

This is he first time eBay has invited developers to submit seller tools for inclusion directly onto eBay Selling Manager, an online tool for managing and tracking listings on eBay. More than 700,000 professional eBay sellers subscribe to Selling Manager, which until now has consisted entirely of applications developed in-house at eBay. By giving developers the opportunity to showcase their tools to eBay's most active sellers, eBay aims to help developers and sellers alike create new revenue streams and maximize their ability to make money through eBay, the company said in a statement.

--Tanya Irwin