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Canadian startup powers latest Groupon feature

A quick piece of Groupon news with a Canadian spin: the group-buying powerhouse purchased a Vancouver startup called OpenCal in Sept. 2011. Last month, Groupon began a pilot test of “Groupon Scheduler”, which the Canadian website TechVibes says is directly based on OpenCal’s software.

Groupon Scheduler is an online appointment service that provides merchants with an easy way to manage their schedules and accept bookings from consumers.

OpenCal launched at the end of 2010, so the acquisition was quick, although probably not overly lucrative. OpenCal was co-founded by Shiva and Simon Vallee, who also helped to found Sitemasher, another Canadian web service, which was acquired by Salesforce.

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Canadian Groupon competitor launches instant redemption feature

When you’re competing with Groupon, you often have to play follow the leader. Toronto-based DealFind has launched a new product called Everyday Deals, which closely replicates Groupon’s GrouponNow feature. Both allow consumers to find current deals and redeem them immediately instantly.

Everyday Deals has a few bells and whistles that leapfrog GrouponNow (although we suspect not for very long). Most notable is a nifty filter feature that can drill down by category, day and even time (early morning, mid-day, late night, etc.). There is also a Google Map with pushpins where a deal is located. If you’re in the mood for saving money while on-the-go, Everyday Deals looks promising.

Despite its Toronto-origins and headquarters, and its strong presence in every major Canadian cities, DealFind also runs local sites in most U.S. states (the company added 18 new cities in November 2011 alone). DealFind has been around since 2009 and has sold nearly 2 million vouchers valued at over $400,000 total – not the biggest player on the block but one that looks to be around for a while.

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Boocoo Auctions soon in Canada

Ranger Data Technologies’  Boocoo Auctions, the online auction marketplace for nearly 300 publishers and broadcasters, just announced two milestones – one million items listed, and a launch in Canada. Here’s what they emailed about their growth performance:  Continue reading

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 Slick Facebook Daily Deals app

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 Classified idea sharing via LinkedIN

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