Back in January Mayor Horrigan, along with other local officials and representatives from eBay, announced that Akron was part of the online retailers "Retail Revival" initiative, offering website maintanence and other services through the ebay.com platform for local entrepreneurs. 

Fast forward 8 months later and eBay's back in town, announcing Thursday the eBay@Home initiative, which brings with it 40 new full-time, work-from-home, customer service positions to Akron, part of a global launch to add to the online marketer's workforce. Akron, along with Salt Lake City, Utah, and Austin, Texas, are the only three U.S. cities taking part. 

So far, eBay has filled half of the positions, after receiving more than 1,300 applications, according to a press release from Paul Gazeley (pictured), the head of eBay's North American customer service operations. 

"We need a talented market, outside of Silicon Valley and other tech hubs that we have, that offers the most opportunity to our customers; and we wanted to continue to revitalize local economies," Gazeley said. "Taking all of this into account, we chose Akron."