May 17, 2012
The Toronto-based real estate classified site RentCompass has launched a new Facebook app to complement the mobile apps it already has.
The basic concept behind RentCompass is nothing we haven’t seen before – a Google Map with available rentals appearing as house icons. Click any item to go to the property’s details page, which includes the usual goodies – pictures, contact info, floor plans. But in the relatively smaller Canadian...
May 3, 2012
We last wrote about the Canadian daily deals site TeamSave in November 2010 when the company inked a deal to power Kijiji’s deal functionality in Canada. This was in addition to TeamSave’s own daily deal site which competes with other local deal companies such as DealFind and of course Groupon.
We caught up with TeamSave’s president Chris Nguyen who shared with us an...
March 28, 2012
By Brian Blum
Here’s a trend that seems outright outrageous to us: asking for a job applicant’s social-media passwords.
It’s been in the news for the past few years, off-and-on, especially during the past few weeks. Today, the Toronto Star has an article about a candidate for a law enforcement job who was asked to share his Facebook...
March 27, 2012
In a sign that the home foreclosure heartbreak has not abated, Canadian property portal Point2 has announced the release of a dedicated foreclosures tab on its Point2Homes website. Data for the section comes from a variety of sources including banks and local MLS’s, which can upload an automated feed to Point2Homes.
Point2Homes is Point2’s own classified site; the company also syndicates foreclosure inventory to more than 50 third party consumer partner sites and search engines.
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March 21, 2012
Call it “the wisdom of the crowds” or “herd mentality.” A new study from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management in Canada claims that the reason group buying sites are so hot is that “users draw conclusions on quality from the number of people that have signed up.”
That may not sound so radical, but consider why today’s group buying sites are succeeding where older services like Mercata and MobShop failed: the latter deterred potential buyers by leaving...
March 5, 2012
When Bill McDonald, the publisher of Metro, a free publication owned by the Canadian publishing giant Torstar, was asked during a panel discussion in Toronto last month to name the date when his paper would cease publishing in print, he quipped “Never in our lifetime.” Toronto Star publisher John Cruickshank agreed, saying that, “I feel very optimistic about the long term for our news organizations … the best of times are ahead for the best of brands.”
We’re not so sure. A comment by...