Data Riot Rocks Walmart, Sort Of
No worries. Nobody is looting merchandise from America's favorite superstore.
But Walmart is playing on a different data playing field than other retail brands, which could cause its competitors to panic and run for the hills.
You see, Walmart just acquired OneRiot, a mobile and social ad targeting startup. And they recently acquired social media startup, Kosmix, earlier this year.
Why in the world would a retailer buy its own social media and mobile ad platforms?
As Heardable's Gunther Sonnenfeld says, "The future is in data and data services, with a focus on business insight. HP's purchase of Autonomy is shows that they are bailing on their consumer business completely."
Some companies, it seems, are focusing an enormous amount of time and resources of late into becoming data powerhouses. Some, like HP, may be transforming their entire companies into data-centric businesses. Others, like Walmart, are becoming data spellunkers to better understand consumer behavior and to leverage insights gleaned to sell more products, more effectively than ever before.
Walmart is quoted to have said that "the finer points of Big Data, Fast Data, and machine learning technologies" is what's going to give them a data mining advantage, which in turn, may give them a competitive edge in business.
Are you listening K-Mart? Is Target reading this? Hello Costco!
What unfolds next should be fun to watch.
Don't have the money to aquire your own analytics company? Then today's your lucky day! You can subscribe to Heardable, have us help mine some tasty business intelligence from our real-time brand mesurement platform, and help your company get a leg up on your competitors.
A riot for good. Go big data!
About Jon
Being Heardable, the Heardable Blog, is curated by Heardable co-founder and digital marketing veteran, Jon Samsel. Jon is based in Los Angeles, and Singapore.