When it comes to Web 2.0 development programs, eBay has been voted one of the best, based on the Evans Data survey.

Evans's "Developer's Choice: Web 2.0 Developer Programs" survey ranked companies based on criteria ranging from API functionality and Web services to certification, documentation and developer support.

EBay users rated the company top marks due primarily to the strength of eBay's Web service. This allows third-party developers to build Web-based applications that conduct business with the eBay platform. Other companies included in the survey were Amazon, Google, MSN, PayPal and Yahoo.

In the area of tools, Google and MSN were virtually tied for first place. Google dominance resulted from its enterprise-tier tools for search, collaboration and publishing as well as geospatial mapping as found within Google Earth and Google Maps.

Thirty-one percent of developers responding to the survey considered Amazon to have the highest security levels amongst the competitors.

One thing that stands out with developers in our Sheffield based office is the fact the all of the companies mentioned within the "Web 2.0 development service review" are in fact giants within the commerce industry. So what about the innovators of all that is WEB 2.0? Truth be told, EBay have the incentive and money to embark on WEB 2.0 upgrades as seen in the latest changes to its site design while ignoring the actual customers being ripped off every minute of every day.

We gave one of our beta testers just one hour to test the new EBay design and feedback on any bugs, errors or other misgivings. What he found was a lack of care for customer satisfaction and security with the site. This isn't surprising though, we have commented many times about the lack of interest taken by EBay on behalf of its community.

Our tests found more than 100 fraudulent listings in the space of an hour, these were then reported to EBay through the use of their WEB 2.0 tools and to our horror no response or action was taken.

The tools provided for reporting a fraudulent listing do not allow the user to fully submit a complaint; instead we must resort to sending email. This is not what we would consider a WEB 2.0 application and I'm sure many other innovators such as ourselves would agree.