Walmart Acquires Social Media Company

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April 19, 2011

Walmart has signed a definitive agreement to acquire social media company Kosmix, underscoring the world’s largest retailer’s commitment to social and mobile commerce.

Based in Mountain View, Calif., Kosmix has developed a social media technology platform that filters and organizes content in social networks to connect people with real-time information that matters to them.

“We are expanding our capabilities in today's rapidly growing social commerce environment," Eduardo Castro-Wright, Walmart's vice chairman, said about the deal that is expected to close during the first half of this year. “Social networking and mobile applications are increasingly becoming a part of our customers' day-to-day lives globally, influencing how they think about shopping, both online and in retail stores. We are excited to have the Kosmix team join us to accelerate the development of our social and mobile commerce offerings."

Kosmix was founded by Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman, early pioneers of online shopping whose first company, Junglee, was acquired by Amazon.com in 1998. The founders and the Kosmix team will operate as part of the newly formed @WalmartLabs and continue to be based in Silicon Valley.

Walmart said it plans to expand the @WalmartLabs team and expects this new group will create technologies and businesses around social and mobile commerce that will support Walmart's global multi-channel strategy, which integrates the shopping experience between brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce.

Kosmix's technology platform searches and analyzes connections in real-time data streams to deliver highly personalized insights to users. The platform powers TweetBeat, a real-time social media filter for live events with more than five million visits last month; Kosmix.com, a site to discover social content by topic; and RightHealth, one of the top three health and medical information sites by global reach.

"The world of social media is exploding and for millions of consumers their social connections matter hugely in their daily lives," said Rajaraman. "Our work has focused on developing a social genome platform that captures the connections between people, places, topics, products and events as expressed through social media -- be it a feed, a tweet or a post.”

Walmart operates retail businesses in 15 countries and e-commerce businesses in nine countries.

SBD Views: Walmart continues to expand it lead in social media competencies with this acquisition. Combined with the news two weeks ago that Walmart is considering the test of online grocery shopping in California, it’s clear that it’s just a matter of time before the company begins using social media to drive online sales of its store brands, too.-- John Failla for Store Brands Decisions

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