PayPal Unveils Developer Portal

PayPal on Monday introduced a redesign of its portal for helping developers integrate the company's online payment services into Web sites.

PayPal, owned by auction site eBay, unveiled the latest version of the Developer Central Portal at the eBay Developers Conference in Chicago. The redesigned site, scheduled to launch in July, will offer business and technical kits to help developers market their services, identify customer leads, and complete integration projects faster. In addition, the portal will include forums for developers to share knowledge.

New additions to the site include a marketing library with prepackaged sales presentations and case studies to help developers sell PayPal integration projects. In addition, there's best-practice advice on responding to requests for proposals and tips on marketing. On the technical side, there's a new library with sample code and training and education materials about online payments.

The portal offers 25 application programming interfaces that enable online retailers to send and receive money online, refund transactions, manage subscriptions, and check transaction histories. New APIs in the redesigned portal offer more options for subscription billing and for conducting transactions with repeat customers. In addition, the site offers a directory of PayPal-certified developers.

The PayPal Developer Program, launched in 2001, has more than 35,000 members, according to PayPal. The company has certified more than 300 developers. PayPal has more than 60 million active accounts in 190 markets and supports 17 currencies.

EBay expects about 10,000 sellers and buyers to attend its Chicago conference this week. In the last year, eBay has created new incentives for sellers and changed its search algorithms. Rankings were based on the time remaining for sales. Now they take into account other factors, such as relevance and seller performance ratings. About 1.3 million people earn part or all of their income selling on eBay, according to ACNielsen.