Emily Ward, vice president for Technology and Patents, welcomed the crowd, saying, “This party is for all of you – to celebrate our inventors, our innovators, our global talent – everyone who works so hard here to make our innovations great and make eBay a great company.”

Chief Technology Officer Mark Carges began by thanking the company’s patent holders and patent attorneys.  He stressed the importance of innovation to the company.  “You have all heard me talk about clock speed and the importance of us delivering our innovations to our customers faster than our competitors, and clearly our patents are an important part of that,” he said.  “Keep inventing.”

John Donahoe, eBay Inc.’s president and CEO, noted that 2012 was a record year for patent filings for the company.

“We’ve begun to embrace an exciting vision of connected commerce, where we can change the world,” Donahoe said. “We can’t do that without innovation. And a key component of innovation is doing something that has never been done before, and then protecting it through patents.”

“Now is the time to grab our future,” he added. “Now is the time to lead in innovation.   Now is the time to build on the great work that all of you have done to drive incredible, compelling experiences for our customers.”

Rohan, vice president of PayPal Asia, co-chaired a session on achieving entrepreneurial success at The Wall Street Journal’s “Unleashing Innovation” conference. He emphasized that PayPal is fostering an entrepreneurial spirit at eBay Inc. as well as enabling the growth of small businesses and entrepreneurs in the region by connecting them with consumers all over the world.

“Our customers are very innovative, so we have to be very innovative to meet their needs around the region,” Rohan said.

Watch a Wall Street Journal interview with Rohan, in which he discusses why China is the fastest-growing market for online merchants:

Online advertising is constantly evolving, and online campaigns are now more measurable, dependable and efficient than those in the offline world. At eBay, display marketing is seen as a way to connect people with things they need and love. Luke Tillo of the eBay Internet Marketing team explains how.

What is display marketing? 

It’s anything from Facebook ads to text logos to online video, and includes a lot of mobile advertising.  There’s often a misconception that display marketing is banner advertising – which it does include – but display marketing has developed into much more. For example, the vast majority of mobile marketing spend is through Display. Our team’s work is divided into three areas: Operations, which focuses on the creative and tracking; Campaign Management; and Analytics, which measures our success.

How do display ads help connect people to the things they need and love?

We can create in real time an ad that is based on the user’s purchase history, or “propensity to buy.” If a user has bought a camera and film recently, we can build an ad in real time that shows the buyer a lens or camera stand or other accessory. The customer may not realize that they “need” these accessories, and we make it easier for them to get these extras more quickly and conveniently.

How has display marketing evolved?

It started out with static banners, and over the past 4-5 years, we now have the ability to pull in live eBay listings into our banners. We are now an industry leader in mobile marketing. Video is the next medium to master.

What’s the future for display marketing?

I would love to see us get to a point where a customer on the internet searches or expresses intent for an item, and in real time, eBay shows them a banner or video or mobile ad that is compelling enough to make them purchase on eBay in their current session.

They’ve both been here on eBay Ink multiple times in the past so it was great to be able to sit down with them this week and talk about the accolade. Even more interesting was learning how eerily linked their paths have been over the years… beginning with their freshman year in college (stick around for the end of the interview to also find out possible connections to the movie Mannequin and Jessica Simpson).

About Dane Glasgow
Glasgow, 34, got his entrepreneurial start in high school. As a senior, he joined a multimedia startup called Meetinghouse Technologies. Then, as a junior in college, he was named vice president of its Ithaca division. A year later, he tried out the president’s role at Jump Networks and launched Jump.com, an Internet-based email and calendar service. Microsoft took note, and bought the company in 1999. Glasgow then worked on Hotmail, Windows Live, Windows Desktop Search and Live Search before leaving to co-found Positronic, a data mining startup doing sentiment analysis and predictive modeling. EBay bought the company in 2008, and Glasgow joined the San Jose company, where he improves the online shopping giant’s products. Outside of the job, he works with the Humane Society, Salvation Army and the Giving Tree, and sits on the board of trustees for the SETI Institute.

About Rob Veres
As the days before Christmas wane, more shoppers are heading out to the stores, armed with smartphones and looking for the best deals. Veres, 35, is helping to make that experience better. As the head of eBay’s RedLaser division, Veres is growing the San Jose company’s barcode scanning technology. Since eBay acquired the technology last year, he has built up the RedLaser team to about a dozen, increased downloads from two million to 14 million, and expanded it to the Android platform. Veres also hops planes to speak at conferences such as SXSW, M-Commerce Summit, and recently, X.Commerce Innovate Conference. In addition, he supports My New Red Shoes, a nonprofit that provides homeless children with new shoes and clothing.

Again, a huge congrats to both Rob and Dane. Totally deserved and can’t wait to see what’s coming next from both of them here at eBay.

Cheers!
RBH

I was lucky enough to sit down with the 10-year eBay veteran to chat about her time at eBay, the award itself and the challenges and opportunities she sees facing women in technology today.

Cheers,
RBH

There’s a new kid on the blogging block…
The eBay Tech Blog (http://ebaytechblog.com) was launched earlier this week and I for one am very excited at the possibilities. Partner this with our eBay Developer Blog and I think we’ve got some pretty cool information on cutting edge innovation coming out of our company.

I realize that “speeds and feeds” aren’t for everyone but this could end up being a great resource for those that are…

About:
eBay is the world’s largest internet marketplace, with hundreds of millions of listings live at any given moment. To support that marketplace, eBay has tackled technical challenges at a scale that few others have. With the eBay Tech Blog, we want to share our experiences working on those challenges with the technical community. We’ll talk less about eBay’s business (there are plenty of blogs already for that) and more about the internal workings of eBay’s search engine, data, and architecture.

If the first blog post (from Hugh E. Williams – Vice President, Buyer Experience Development) is anything to go by, we could be in for some great behind-the-scenes, under-the-hood reports:

Site Speed for eBay Search Results

First, welcome to the eBay technical blog! Each month, we will publish one or two entries describing technical challenges at eBay, and how we go about solving them. We look forward to your comments, and we welcome your suggestions for articles.

It’s my pleasure to write the first entry in our new blog. In two parts, I’m going to introduce you to how we’ve worked on site speed over the past year, and the results that has delivered. The bottom line is that improving site speed has helped our customers and driven our business. With improvements in site speed, sellers have sold more, buyers have bought more, and eBay’s business has grown as a result. Site speed matters, and we continue to drive improvements.

Read the full blog post on Site Speed for eBay Search Results.

They’re also up and running on Twitter so be sure to follow @ebaytechblog for updates and conversation moving forward. I’ve added them to our comprehensive directory of official eBay Twitter handles too.

Cheers,
RBH

I’ll be live-blogging from next week’s eBay Developer’s Conference and trying to capture as much video footage to share with you as I can. I’m setting up a Twitter list that breaks down all the different folks that will be providing updates coming out of the conference.

I managed to get added to the agenda for the last session on the second day – I wonder if I’ll be able to serve beer to everyone who attends. Here is how it’s broken down on the eBay DevCon schedule:

BLOGGING FOR BRANDS: BARTENDING WITH INFORMATION
Thursday, June 10
1:30 – 2:20pm
eBay is, in essence, the first social network on the Web. Social media is in its DNA. Starting with the eBay Developer Blog back in 2004 and through today there are a variety of official company blogs that address key aspects of its business, community and technologies.

eBay Ink, the official corporate blog, is a unique social media forum that allows the company’s management and users to engage in candid conversations about the company’s business operations. Evolving from a traditional corporate blog into a “Life Stream,” eBay Ink acts as a one-stop repository of online conversation and dialogue about the entire company and its adjacencies. In this session, find out how eBay’s innovative use of Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs and Twitter, has given its external audience not only a voice but also a seat at the company’s management table.

In this session, eBay’s chief blogger, Richard Brewer-Hay, will provide a detailed case study behind the growth of social media innovation at the company. Including, but not limited to, the emergence of live-blogging via Twitter and eBay Ink. He will also address the development and implementation of social media guidelines and best practices.

You will learn:
* How eBay Ink gives users and outside influencers an authentic look at eBay’s internal operations
* The critical role that eBay employees play in posting content and responding to outside audiences across a number of blogging platforms
* How the eBay Ink Blog and Twitter feed provide transparency and remain externally credible to audiences

I’ll share the presentation here after the conference.

Cheers,
RBH

The second annual Social Innovation Awards were held in New York City last night and eBay’s Green Team received the social innovator award for employee engagement. The event – which recognizes corporations and nonprofits for implementing groundbreaking business strategies and programs – is organized by JustMeans, an organization that bridges the worlds of social media and corporate responsibility, and the Financial Times.

From the eBay Green Team blog post:

Today, more than 2,400 eBay employees in 23 countries are Green Team members. That’s roughly 15% of our global workforce, all of whom are supporting environmental causes in their local communities and promoting sustainable business practices within eBay – often during lunch breaks, at night and even on weekends.

Through the Green Team, we try to encourage all employees to participate with initiatives like our recent Big Green Idea contest, which invited more than 15,000 employees around the globe to submit ideas for how they would make eBay a greener company. Together with eBay’s CEO John Donahoe, employees voted on their favorites and helped us choose which projects to focus on implementing this year.

It’s a huge accomplishment and I just wanted to personally congratulate the team that made it happen. Excellent job!

Cheers,
RBH

New Offerings Demonstrate Potential to Change the Future of Payments

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) worked with PayPal to support application payments in the Java Store Beta and enhancements to the beta user experience. A consumer-facing storefront enabling the discovery and purchase of Java™ and JavaFX™ applications, the Java Store Beta offers an unequaled distribution mechanism for reaching more than 800 million desktop Java users worldwide and driving potential revenue opportunities through the sale of innovative content.

Carlson Marketing teamed with PayPal to provide another redemption option for participants in client loyalty and engagement programs. Participants now can redeem their program points for specific PayPal dollar amounts. The money can be deposited into their own PayPal accounts or can be given as a gift. Participants simply select the PayPal reward from an online catalog, and within minutes they will receive an e-mail confirming the transaction.

ShopSavvy, the comparison shopping application with more than 3 million users worldwide, now offers mobile payments utilizing PayPal X. PayPal’s first suite of application programming interfaces (APIs), Adaptive Payments, makes it possible for ShopSavvy users to immediately purchase items through their PayPal accounts after they scan the product barcode with their mobile phone cameras.

Payvment today introduced an e-commerce application that allows anyone to easily create a retail store on Facebook. By harnessing the power of PayPal X, customers will now be able to shop from multiple vendors in a single shopping cart, turning Facebook into an online shopping mall.

MedPayOnline uses PayPal X to power its patient payment system, which addresses the payments needs of the $2.3 trillion healthcare market for patient payments. Using Adaptive Payments, the new application allows anyone to easily pay their medical providers online.

Storenvy today launched as an online store system and social shopping community, connecting independent merchants with shoppers in a social setting. Storenvy’s social shopping features allow consumers to interact and see each others’ tastes and comments on products across all stores, creating a crowd-curated selection of “Most Popular” items for new users to discover. Adaptive Payments allows Storenvy shoppers to use one shopping cart and make one payment transaction, even when buying from multiple stores or multiple countries.

Cheers!
RBH