PayPal Innovate conference Nov 09, RIP DevCon
PayPal have just announced a a two day conference in November – PayPal Innovate 2009. Running over two days it’s to be held in San Jose on the 3rd-4th November and is the first ever developer conference focused on the PayPal open payments platform.
Early bird booking is $299, with the regular price of $499 and it promises over 40 technical sessions, keynotes, labs, and networking events to “excite and inspire you”.
They’ve also got a secret – they’re offering something really cool to attendees as part of the conference package. No hints as to what it is but it’s promised to be one of the coolest conference giveaways ever.
PayPal have also announced “PayPal X”, the opening of their payment platform to third-party developers. By releasing new APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), PayPal is enabling the developer community to build new ways to pay and get paid. Twitpay, a Twitter-based payment service, LiveOps, a new on-demand workforce service and Microsoft’s Windows® Azure are some of the first applications.
You can follow the latest news at x.com which used to host PayPal Labs but is now the PayPal “Geek Out” blog.
It strikes me as interesting that PayPal, the long term jewel in the eBay portfolio, are launching a new conference. eBay Live! is dead and replaced with regional eBay: On Location events for 2010. I also hear a rumour that eBay’s DevCon 2009 was the last major Developers Conference, with that too being replaced by regional events in 2010 (although I’ve not had that confirmed).
Just how long will it be before “eBay, a PayPal company” becomes a reality?
ebuyerfb says
3:15 am on 24/07/2009
If there’s no DevCon does that mean no more eBay Star Developers? Or do they just make an announcement online and send your trophy in a flat rate priority mail box? Are there even enough developers to support having regional events?
Chris Dawson says
9:08 am on 24/07/2009
Trinkets are hardly the biggest concern for most developers. Making money is what counts. What you should be taking away isn’t that you might not be able to enter for a pat on the back, but that you should be seriously looking at PayPal applications and getting yourself down to San Jose on the 3rd November.
board_surfer says
9:26 am on 24/07/2009
“it’s promised to be one of the coolest conference giveaways ever.”
That will be the fridge in the video then?
Steve Antony Williams says
9:32 am on 24/07/2009
“Paypal – Some things will never change”
We know which bits those are don’t we ?
Why on earth does anyone need a Paypal developer conference ? It’s not exactly rocket science to use, including integration.
Steve
Chris Dawson says
9:55 am on 24/07/2009
Hey Steve, mainly because they’ve never opened up their API before allowing third party applications to be built. Up until now users could only integrate existing PayPal built apps, but that’s about to change.
BS – I want that fridge too – especially for $1250, that’s a bargain!
Eddie (AuctionChex) says
10:49 am on 24/07/2009
This is sooooooooooooooo frustrating !
Finally, Paypal API allows me to do what I want for the ‘in the back of my mind’ app, but eBay API doesn’t allow me to do it – and probably never will!
ebuyerfb says
8:52 pm on 24/07/2009
@ # 2
I don’t know. I heard Vendio took it kind of hard when they didn’t get 1st place in their category. http://www.vendio.com/vendable/2009/06/17/vendio-press-release-2009-ebay-star-developer-awards/ (one of my favorite press releases ever).
I signed up to potentially be a beta developer for PayPal. They are only allowing 300 people in at the moment but none of the questions asked had anything to do qualifications (just name, company size, and what you are interested in). I’m pretty sure I remember Apple’s beta developers having to go through some sort of vetting process before they were even allowed to join.
Chris Dawson says
9:23 pm on 24/07/2009
#7 To be perfectly honest I don’t care if someone wins an award or a runner’s up trinket – if I don’t like their app or it’s not useful no amount of awards will persuade me to use it. The only apps I use are the ones which can help my business and it’s totally irrelevant to me if they’ve won awards or not.
The question has to be asked if the vast majority of eBay users have any visibility of awards winners and the answer is almost certainly a resounding no – so they don’t help gain new customers. Or in other words they’re a nice pat on the back which doesn’t put any money in the bank – if devs think they’re that important or that winning an award makes a difference then they’re focusing on the wrong thing.
Eddie (AuctionChex) says
11:47 pm on 24/07/2009
Chris – a few years ago, I was asked to submit one of my apps for an eBay Dev competition, I didn’t win, but do remember one of the winners, a really great app – perform all eBay functions on your Wii !
Yes, it was a great app, but about as much use as the proverbial – who on earth would want to eBay on their Wii ???
ebuyerfb says
12:01 am on 25/07/2009
@ # 8
I’m curious if you read the press release I linked to? It was obviously satire.
Chris Dawson says
9:51 am on 25/07/2009
@10 I read it the day they wrote it. Fact remains as Eddie points out in #9 winning an award for a fancy app is absolutely pointless if no one wants to use it. Pat on the back for the Wii app, but my neighbours who are Wii mad still use their PC or laptop for eBay.
Quite frankly for serious developers people using and paying for their work is enough and they won’t give tuppence whether they win an award or not.
ebuyerfb says
6:13 pm on 25/07/2009
@ # 11
Fair enough. I just wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t arguing with you yet it looked like we were getting into a heated debate.