Joe's Thoughts: X.commerce (Redirect)

I just got back from the X.commerce Innovate Developer’s conference yesterday. Hosted by a number of prominent tech companies such as eBay, Magento, and Paypal, there were over 3000 developers, business owners, and online sellers attending the event when they announced a new development platform for the Internet: X.commerce. The X.commerce platform is a centralized development platform for eCommerce stores, payment systems, and shopping carts. Described as “the first end-to-end, multi-channel commerce technology platform designed for all the ways consumers choose to shop today,” the idea is to create a single unified language for the web, instead of the dozens of competing ones we currently have.

I’m convinced the idea itself is solid and could gain traction because of the current state of the online industry, which is completely fragmented. Due to this fragmentation, Webgistix has developed customized integrations for each major shopping cart system. Utilizing X.commerce, however, the integration process would theoretically require only a single piece of code that could be applied to any shopping cart. Bringing everyone onboard X.commerce would simplify things immensely, cut down the time required to create and integrate new programs, and broaden our ability to help our customers and partners.

How well the idea catches on depends on the companies involved in developing it, primarily eBay. If the platform is well-designed and properly promoted then it’s something that can change the face of how online companies interact with each other and their customers. If not, then it might just flame out like a lot of other ambitious projects. Only time will tell for certain, but I’m looking forward to see how X.commerce will change the state of the eCommerce industry.