Web 2.0 Expo: eBay Tells Developers to Embrace Making Money

EBay (EBAY) is on a mission to woo developers at the Web 2.0 Expo this week in San Francisco.

During a keynote speech Wednesday, eBay CTO Mark Carges told an audience filled with Internet start-ups that “nothing matters more than getting paid for the hard work that you do.” EBay knows a thing or two about making money, he said, before unveiling a new program to open up the company’s marketplace platform and PayPal services to outside developers.

On Thursday, Carges elaborated on that plan in an interview. Web 2.0 start-ups have tended to go after critical mass audience first–and then worry about making money later, he said. “It was easy for one to assume that you can move into an advertising model eventually,” Carges said, “and this has been reinforced by the way that a lot of venture capital firms have run boards of these companies.”

But that kind of thinking is likely going away in the recession out of necessity. Now he wants eBay and PayPal to become a part of start-up business models.

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