The Digital ID and Authentication Council of Canada (DIACC) has issued a report calling for the creation of an official digital identity for all Canadians, which would be accepted across the country, by government and the private sector, as well as internationally. “It is no exaggeration that Canada’s economic future absolutely depends on developing a reliable, secure, scalable, privacy enhancing and convenient solution for digital identity,” the group said in a report issued Wednesday. The report said Canadians can’t go online to accomplish tasks like accessing...
Facebook Inc. announced Wednesday that its Messenger app is being opened up as a platform for other other apps, and at least two Canadian companies have signed on to provide their services. “Messenger Platform brings even more ways for the 600 million people who use Messenger every month to express themselves,” Facebook said in a release. “With more than 40 new apps, people can enhance their conversations with GIFs, photos, videos, audio clips and more.” Toronto-based Keek Inc. said in a release it is launching a separate app called Keek for Messenger that will...
Snapchat Inc., the maker of mobile apps for picture and video sharing, is being valued at as much as $19 billion US in current talks to secure a new round of funding, Bloomberg reported this week. An article Tuesday said the...
The Canadian government asked Twitter Inc. for users’ personal information 32 times in the last six months of 2014, the social network said on Monday in its latest transparency report. The requests covered 37 different...
Twitter Inc. and Google Inc. have reached a deal that will make posts on Twitter’s social media accounts easier to find through the Google search engine, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. Quoting...
Montreal-based social-TV audience measurement company Seevibes is opening an office in Toronto, the company said in a press release Wednesday. The expansion comes a year after the company opened an office in France. Seevibes also said it named Franz Fontaine as vice-president of strategic...
The Canadian Media Fund (CMF) said Thursday it would provide $8 million to finance 31 digital media projects, as part of the second round of its "experimental stream" for 2014-15. CMF said in a press release that 23 companies received $6.2 million to “to develop three applications, one eBook, seven interactive platforms, 11 games and one social media platform,” while $1.8 million went toward marketing support for eight interactive digital media projects. In December, the CMF awarded $11.8 million to 24 projects....
BlackBerry Inc. said Wednesday from the CES technology trade show in Las Vegas that it launched an Internet of Things (IoT) platform, and that it will make its BBM service available on smartwatches. The IoT platform, which the...
Recently released results of a survey for the Pew Research Center showed U.S. workers ranked landline phones as more important for their jobs than cellphones but less important than email and the...
WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said on a Facebook post Tuesday that the service now has more than 700 million active monthly users, up from 450 million when Facebook Inc. announced its intention to purchase the mobile-messaging-app company...
The Canadian Media Fund (CMF) said Monday it was providing $11.8 million for 24 interactive digital-media projects across the country. The funding is the second round of the CMF's...
Videology Inc., the New York-based provider of video-advertising services, announced three appointments to its staff in Canada on Wednesday. The company said in a press release that Peter Bates in now the senior commercial media...
Instagram, the photo-sharing app owned by Facebook Inc., on Monday launched its advertising program in Canada. The company said in a press release the first ads, or promoted posts, that show up in users’ feeds will be from...
Canadian law enforcement and government agencies asked Facebook Inc. for users’ data more times in the first six months of 2014 than in the same period last year, the social networking platform...
BlackBerry Ltd. on Friday announced new privacy measures for its BBM messaging service that will eventually be offered, along with other services, for a fee. One such feature allows users to set a time when their sent messages...
French bank Groupe BPCE announced Tuesday what it called a "world first in the payment-media field" in allowing payments to be made via Twitter. It said in a press release it has created, in partnership with its mobile-payments subsidiary S-money and Twitter Inc., a system where any holder of a French bank card can send money through Twitter. “This innovation opens up numerous opportunities in the payments field: charitable donations, crowd-funding in all its forms, ticketing, cash-back programs, etc.," S-money CEO Nicolas Chatillon said in the release....
Twitter Inc. said Tuesday it has filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court to reveal more about the information requests it receives from the United States' government. The company said in a press...
Facebook Inc.'s purchase of instant messaging company WhatsApp Inc. closed Monday, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Details of the filing show the final value as $4.59 billion US in...
BCE Inc.'s Bell Media said Wednesday it has invested $5 million in cash in Hubub Inc., and made commitments for millions of dollars more, to develop and promote the company's website and application that facilitates online...
Twitter Inc. said Monday it is testing a program that allows users on its social network to make purchases with the push of a new button that will be included in tweets. The company said in a blog post that a "small...
The latest numbers from the CRTC show Canadians are watching more television on more devices, though fewer people are subscribing to TV services and young adults are tuning out. The broadcasting portion of the CRTC's annual Communications Monitoring Report was released Thursday. The report showed that revenues for the overall broadcasting industry in 2013 rose by 1.3 per cent to $17.1 billion. However, the proportion of Canadian households with a television subscription of any kind fell to 84.9 per cent from 85.6 per cent a year earlier. "We've been seeing this for years; the...
Netflix Inc. on Tuesday announced a new recommendation feature that works through Facebook Inc.'s social network. The provider of online TV services said in a blog that, after viewing a program, users will be asked it they...
Kevin Chan has been appointed Facebook Inc.'s head of public policy in Canada. Company spokeswoman Meg Sinclair said in an email to The Hill Times that Chan will be based in Ottawa and have an "ongoing dialogue with...
Google Inc., Facebook Inc. and Netflix Inc. must pay Canadian songwriters and publishers for music videos viewed on their services, the Copyright Board of Canada ruled on Friday. The board certified two tariffs from the Society...
Facebook Inc. said in an online posting Thursday that it has begun testing a feature that allows users to purchase certain products without leaving the Facebook site. The social network operator said the function works...
Scribble Technologies Inc., the Toronto-based provider of technology and services to help companies engage audiences online, said Tuesday it has purchased CoveritLive from U.S. digital content company...
While singing competition reality shows have been a mainstay on network television for the past decade, their newest iteration could offer an indication of the direction in which social-TV strategies...
Twitter Inc. has acquired the online video platform SnappyTV, which allows “live clipping, editing and distribution,” Twitter said in a blog post Thursday. “As we continue to invest in video, it’s...
The number of “interactions” about television on social networks operated by Facebook Inc. or Twitter Inc. increased 12 per cent in the past year, according to a report from social TV...
Canadian users of the Instagram photo service, owned by Facebook Inc., will soon start seeing advertisements appear in their feeds, the company said Monday. Instagram said in an emailed statement the ads will start "later this year" in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. An article in the Globe and Mail said the ads will target individuals based on the accounts they follow, the photos and videos they view, and also each user's registered information. Christina Valencia, a spokeswoman for Facebook, said the advertising program for Instagram started in the United States last year....
Twitter Inc. has entered into a two-year, $230 million mobile advertising deal with holding company Omnicom Media Group, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The deal will integrate Twitter’s mobile advertising...
More users of social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, are connecting to those sites on mobile devices, MTM, a CBC/Radio-Canada project, said in a report Thursday. The report said 63 per cent...
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday that Facebook Inc. has been given the go-ahead to purchase virtual-reality technology maker Oculus VR Inc. Facebook announced its intention last month to buy the company, which is...
Twitter Inc. said Thursday it is opening up more opportunities for developers to promote their mobile applications to Twitter users, and up to a billion others not on the social network through a mobile-ad exchange. The company...
Twitter Inc. said Tuesday it is acquiring social media analytics provider Gnip Inc., a move one analyst said could cause trouble for other companies that analyze and monetize the social network’s data. Seth Grimes, a New York-based independent analyst with expertise in online analytics, said the deal makes sense for Twitter, which picks up a key player in the industry that has sprung up to take advantage of the reams of data produced by social media sites. "[The acquisition] gives them direct control over how their data is monetized," Grimes said in a phone interview on...
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) is calling on governments to do more to protect people from companies that offer so-called free online services. In a press release issued Wednesday, it said consumers have little...
Canadians overwhelmingly use Apple Inc. iPhones as a second screen when watching television, and despite vanishingly small market share, those with BlackBerry Ltd. smartphones account for nearly...
Facebook Inc. said Wednesday has reached an agreement to pay about $19 billion US for mobile-messaging application company WhatsApp Inc. Facebook said in a press release that the purchase price includes $4 billion US in cash and...
Facebook Inc. said Thursday that it is launching a trending feature that will highlight the most talked-about topics on the social network. The company said in a posting to its website that Facebook users will find the new...
Facebook Inc. said Tuesday it would start testing video advertisements that start playing in a user’s newsfeed as soon they come into view. It said in a release that this week a “small number of people” would...
Myriad Group AG, a Swiss-based developer of mobile technology, said Monday it reached an agreement with Twitter Inc. to provide mobile users in developing countries with a text-based, read-only...
BlackBerry Ltd. executives met with Facebook Inc. in California last week “to gauge its interest in a potential bid” for the company, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. In a report citing anonymous people...
Facebook Inc. is launching a program that pairs up media agencies and Toronto-area small businesses, the company said. Facebook’s six-week “Grand for Good” program will team up local businesses in the Greater...
Benjamin Klass, who penned a blog post replying to George Cope's open letter about the Conservative government's wireless policies, said his post has received about 60,000 views, with 7,500 shares on Facebook and 300 on Twitter. Klass published the blog post, entitled “I am Canadian, A reply to Bell's open letter” on Aug. 3. It responded to the BCE Inc. chief executive's open letter to Canadians about wireless policies favouring a foreign owned company, possibly U.S. giant Verizon Communications Inc., entering Canada's wireless market. “The 'critical...
BCE Inc.’s media subsidiary is teaming up with Twitter Inc. in a new research project to measure Canadians’ “social TV behaviour,” Bell Media said. In a release Thursday, Bell...