MANILA, Philippines -- eBay is looking to provide support for Filipino developers who can create promising applications running on its marketplace, a top regional executive said.

eBay recently announced it is opening up its portal to third-party application developers, a move similar to that made by social networking site Facebook and online software provider Salesforce.com.

By opening itself to third-party developers, eBay is turning to its community for innovation while spurring new services for buyers and sellers.

eBay mounted a regional competition looking to encourage developers to create innovative applications for local markets like the Philippines.

Dan Neary, eBay vice president for emerging markets in Southeast Asia, said the company hopes to raise awareness of the viability of building e-commerce applications and tools using eBay and PayPal APIs (application programming interfaces).

"As well as to identify and incubate two to three promising development teams or applications into real businesses," Neary said, responding to questions via email.

Neary described various models by which developers can monetize their applications via eBay.

"If the developer is also an eBay seller, he can use the application to highlight items on his site to drive sales," he noted. "Or eBay pays out commissions to developers whose applications drive new users or buyer activity to our site."

Moreover, he said developers can charge users who use their applications.

"You can charge fellow users who wish to use your application on a per listing basis or monthly subscription," he said.

Lastly, he said developers can also charge for consultancy services when developing applications for eBay buyers and sellers.

"We realize that some of the best ideas for applications come from the eBay community," Neary said. "These third-party applications help our users find what they're looking for and make it faster and easier to buy and sell on eBay."

eBay said it has more than 3,000 full-time sellers in the Philippines whose primary source of income is selling through eBay.ph. The site generates 1.6 million unique visitors monthly, the company said.