eBay ranked as having the best developer program among so-called Web 2.0 companies, according to a recent survey of developers.
Evans Data, of Santa Cruz, Calif., reported the findings of its Developers Choice: Web 2.0 Developer Programs survey on June 6. In the survey, which included nearly 400 developers, eBay ranked first against Amazon, Google, MSN, PayPal and Yahoo.
Evans Data asked developers to rate the companies according to issues such as certification, documentation, developer support, case studies, solutions directories and marketing assistance, as well as API functionality and Web services, the company said.
Evans officials said eBays developers said they were particularly impressed with eBays Web services and APIs that enable third party developers to create Web-based applications to do business on the eBay platform.
Both Facebook and Google recently held day-long developer events to promote tools that developers can use to build applications for the Facebook and Google platforms. On May 24, Facebook introduced the Facebook Platform, a new platform for developers to build on top of Facebooks APIs, at the Facebook f8 developer event in San Francisco.
Google announced Google Gears, an open-source technology for creating offline Web applications, during Googles Developer Day event on May 31. Google also announced other tools and showed off its platform for more than 5,000 developers in 10 cities throughout the world.
In the Evans survey, Google tied with MSN for having best tools. Developers mentioned Microsofts overall commitment to developers, as well as Googles tools for search, collaboration and publishing, and geospatial mapping, Evans officials said. Developers also cited Microsofts strength in Web services.
Nearly a third of the developers surveyed said they thought Amazon delivers the highest security among the companies listed, Evans officials said.
eBay will hold its own eBay Developers Conference on June 11-13 in Boston.
"Building a professional program for our developers is a critical enabler of our strategy to deliver engaging applications to eBay buyers and sellers anywhere they are on the Internet," said Max Mancini, senior director of disruptive innovation and platform strategy at eBay, in a statement.
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