eBay showed it is reaching out to developers with a slew of announcements as the eBay Developer Conference kicked off in San Jose Tuesday, with 550 developers in attendance. The conference message can be summed up with the phrase, unleash the next level of innovation.

eBay is encouraging programmers to become certified with a new low-cost pricing structure for entry-level developers. In addition, developers can now share or sell the applications they develop, formerly prohibited by eBay. Once Individual Tier programmers reach 10,000 calls/month, however, they must apply for the Commercial-Tier level.

The move is designed to attract new developers. eBay introduced a new site called Codebase designed to foster open source development. In his keynote address, Greg Isaacs said developers can work together to develop applications for eBay, which may help it extend the platform into mobile devices, cable TV/DVRs and video game consoles.

Also announced at the conference on Tuesday is a new solutions directory for PayPal that lists third-party developers tools for users (http://solutions.paypal.com).