Canada

News Byte

Intuit’s GoPayment Mobile Credit-Card Reader Beats Square’s into Canada

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on January 9 at 7:00 pm PT

Intuit will soon launch its mobile credit-card reader in Canada, beating the well-funded-and-recognized Square to the market. Both companies distribute devices that allow small-scale merchants to accept credit cards on a cellphone or tablet; so far, Square only operates in the U.S. Intuit, the publicly held company that sells other small-business resources, such as QuickBooks, said its GoPayment device will be available in Canada early this year; it plans to push into other international markets in the future.

News Byte

Canada’s TransGaming Acquires Oberon’s TV Interactive Division for $7 Million

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on January 4 at 12:13 pm PT

TransGaming, a Canada-based distributor of games for set-top boxes and computers, has acquired the interactive TV division of Oberon Media, a New York-based games distributor. TransGaming will pay up to $7 million, including $3 million in cash on closing, $2 million in earn-outs and four million TransGaming shares. Oberon’s network, which in North American includes DISH Network and DirecTV, distributes games to nearly 50 million households.

News Byte

Canada’s Rogers Plays Catch-Up to Groupon by Partnering With Group Commerce

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on November 29, 2011 at 9:23 am PT

Group Commerce has signed up Rogers Digital Media in Canada to publish their own daily deals to compete with Groupon and others. RDeals will launch today to offer consumers daily discounts on spas, restaurants and other services. Rogers’ holdings include magazines — Maclean’s, Today’s Parent and Hello! Canada — as well as several radio and TV stations. Publishers are trying to leverage their vast audiences to get into the local commerce space, but are generally playing a game of catch-up.

News Byte

YouTube Movie Rentals in Canada, Too

Peter Kafka in News on September 1, 2011 at 7:37 am PT

Apparently it’s Web video international expansion day: A few hours after Hulu opened for business in Japan, YouTube has started offering rental movies in Canada (last year, Netflix headed north, too). Last spring, Google’s video site beefed up its barely-there U.S. rental service with more offerings from big studios, though a note from the site hints that it’s not a big deal quite yet: “P.S. (if you’re in the US and forgot we have movies to rent just go to www.youtube.com/movies).”