eBay is Hiring

I'm finally getting some help! eBay is looking for a Solutions Marketing Manager to work on my team to help champion the Certified Provider cause, among other cool things. Did I mention, I love my job??

Job Description:
The eBay Developers Program is responsible for fostering external innovation on the eBay platform. The Developers Program is looking for an Associate Manager for Solutions Marketing to define, plan and implement the marketing strategy for solutions and tools built by eBay's third party developers. Third party developers and the applications they build are critical to eBay users and this role will ensure that these tools are marketed to and adopted by the eBay community. There are over 40,000 third party developers who have built over 4,000 applications for eBay users.

The position reports to the Senior Manager, Market Development within the Developers Program and will interface directly with other eBay marketing teams, including the Buyer and Seller Marketing Teams and the Community Team, to plan joint programs and campaigns to the user community. This role will also work with Product Management teams to define business requirements for marketing projects and with eBay's Brand Marketing team to ensure brand consistency and messaging. The ideal candidate has experience marketing products to users through onsite tools and programs, has experience in brand marketing concepts and takes a creative approach to solving problems.
Responsibilities:

• Define, plan and implement the marketing strategy for third party tools to eBay users
• Partnership with other eBay marketing teams to include third party tools in marketing programs and platforms, including email marketing, onsite marketing, customer call campaigns, online webinars and other communication platforms
• Ownership of eBay's Solutions Directory, the online repository of third party and eBay built tools, including strategy, functionality, marketing and performance
• Ownership of eBay's Solutions Finder, the online tool for identifying solutions for users, including strategy, functionality, marketing and performance
• Identifying new and creative ways to marketing third party tools to eBay users, both on and off eBay.com
• Ownership of the Developers Program Marketing Handbook for third parties
• Working directly with eBay's Certified Provider team to coordinate marketing for Certified Providers (eBay's premier third party partners)
• Partnership with eBay's Brand Marketing team to create the Developers Program brand strategy and ensure third parties adhere to brand guidelines

Job Requirements:

• Ability to understand and communicate technology capabilities and appropriate uses
• Ability to identify, analyze and proactively drive issues to resolution
• Familiarity with online marketing resources and forums (e.g., Digg, web forums, product review sites, etc..)
• Excellent written, verbal and communication skills
• Fun, highly energetic personality; team player that works well in fast-paced, collaborative situations who has a personal passion for technical/internet innovation.
• Strong preference given to candidates who are active eBay users and are familiar with the eBay user experience.

If interested, you can apply here: http://eBaycareers.com, look for job req #14662BR, or send your resume directly to me.

The iPhone, My Four Cents

Awhile ago, I blogged on the eBay Developers Weblog about my trip to Macworld. That was my two cents...here's my other two cents.

Apple markets the iPhone as a device that runs widgets on OS X, yet has no outlined strategy for third party applications. The iPod, which offers a great opportunity for third parties to develop games, has yet to leverage the power of these developers to add value to iPod (and iTunes for that matter). As such, I'm not highly optimistic that Apple will be offering an SDK to developers any time soon.

There's an interesting question that wireless data raises. Assuming Apple (or third party app, such as Skype) were to build a soft phone VOIP application, it's feasible to bypass the carrier altogether. Skype (with wifi phones from Netgear and Belkin) are already doing this, offering the potential for a paradigm shift in the phone industry.

I'm not sure about their forecast of 10M phones by end 1008 at $499-$599 each. Apple has a loooooong history in fiercely holding onto their MAP pricing, so don't count on price erosion. To put that in perspective, Cingular's current subscriber base, for ALL phones, is 60M. Research in Motion, with their cult following for their Blackberries, managed to sell less than 6M last year, with multiple models for multiple carriers.

Of course, that's just my four cents.