The South by Southwest (SXSW) festival now underway in Austin, Texas, is representing an opportunity for various payments players to show their wares and demonstrate emerging technologies’ possibilities. It’s also generating lots of discussion. The recent woes affecting Bitcoin have not dimmed hopes for cryptocurrencies,...
A 3-year-old events concierge app called Sosh reportedly is looking to bring in revenue by adding more utility to its services, which now are offered in San Francisco, New York and Seattle. Known mostly for providing advice on places to go and things to do,...
One of the most difficult things marketers come across is trying to gather consumer payments and buying trend data across multiple merchants. A 2-year-old startup called InfoScout uses consumers to provide just that using the cameras on their smartphones. InfoScout uses “fun and engaging”...
Foursquare has received a $15 million investment from Microsoft. As part of the deal, Microsoft received a multi-year licensing deal for Foursquare’s location data, the company said in a Feb. 4 blog post. The $15 million will be included in the money Foursquare raised in December....
OpenTable, an app that allows users to reserve tables at participating restaurants, is now testing a mobile payments function in a pilot based in San Francisco. The developer announced in a Feb. 6. blog post on its company website that OpenTable users can pay their bill on...
04 March 2014 Vitacost.com, a vitamin and supplement e-tailer, is exploring its options, such as a potential sale, after continuing to post losses. Sales were up 16 percent year over year in 2013 compared with the previous 12-month period, Internet Retailer reported on March 3....
Virtual Piggy, developer of the youth-oriented online wallet Oink, says the Discover Network will power its service. The company will launch the updated service in the U.S., followed by launches in Europe and Asia later in 2014, according to a company statement. “Discover and Oink...
Next week, a startup called Pave will be launching a new group of New York “Rising Stars,” who will be able to take advantage of the company’s unusual investment program designed to help individuals, including recent college graduates, get their careers off the ground. (Jump...
Consumer sentiment regarding mobile payments has improved “drastically,” as social media conversations have moved to discussions over which options should be used and which are most secure, according to a new MasterCard report. In its second annual global Mobile Payments Study, conducted with PRIME Research,...
