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Walmart Buys OneRiot For WalmartLabs

Danny Sullivan on September 13, 2011 at 8:10 pm

Walmart is at it again with what seems an unusual purchase for the retailer. The company has just purchased social advertising company OneRiot, it’s been announced. It will become part of WalmartLabs.

From the OneRiot blog post:

We’re delighted to announce that OneRiot has been acquired by Walmart.

The OneRiot team will now be joining @Walmartlabs – Walmart’s hub for the creation of new technologies and business models integrating social, mobile and retail for the next-generation of e-commerce.

And from the WalmartLabs post:

A few weeks ago, a small team from @WalmartLabs visited the offices of OneRiot in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. OneRiot has developed some pretty nifty technology that analyzes social media signals from popular networks like Twitter and Facebook to deliver ads that are relevant to consumers’ interests. As our teams debated the finer points of Big Data, Fast Data, and machine learning technologies, it became clear to us that we could find no better colleagues than the guys at OneRiot.

As a part of Walmart, we’re continuing to work with the intensity of a technology startup. Today I’m pumped to share the news that, within 30 days of that first meeting, we have closed a transaction to acquire the key assets of OneRiot. The technology team at OneRiot will move to Silicon Valley and become part of @WalmartLabs in September.

As I have written before, here at @WalmartLabs we’re doing some amazingly interesting and impactful work at the intersection of social, mobile, and retail. The technology at the core of what we do is the Social Genome, which enables us to connect millions of consumers with the best products based on their interests at any given moment. The OneRiot technology will enrich the Social Genome, and the OneRiot team adds to the already deep expertise we have around social data analysis.

In April, Walmart acquired the Kosmix search engine for WalmartLabs: Walmart Buys Former Search Engine Kosmix To Power Social & Mobile Shopping.

About The Author

Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, MarTech Today and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.