Wal-Mart Stores and Facebook have a deal to connect consumers with local Walmart stores. My Local Walmart is a page that lets the retailer's roughly nine million Facebook fans follow what is happening at stores in their neighborhoods. The effort covers about 3,500 Wal-Mart outlets and will send alerts to the company's Facebook fans about new products and discounts, the companies said.   The effort is part of Walmart's program to compete against Internet rivals like Amazon.com Inc. Facebook fans of Wal-Mart who sign up to the new page will get about two messages a week from …

Pandora is the most downloaded free music program in the Apple and Google app stores and has more listeners in New York and Los Angeles than the largest radio stations in those cities.

Catalina Marketing Corp. has named Jamie Egasti, former president of global snacks and coffee at Procter & Gamble, as the company's CEO and member of its board of directors. Egasti replaces Catalina co-founder George Off, who has served as interim CEO and a member of the board of directors since May.

Apple CEO Tim Cook told employees of the Cupertino, Calif., company that a celebration of Steve Jobs will be at an outdoor amphitheater at Apple's headquarters next Wednesday.

Like Hyundai, VW is bringing out larger, better-equipped, value-priced vehicles. And VW just launched new versions of the Passat and Beetle.

Walmart Neighborhood Market now wants to make its debut in the Northeast with a store in Somerville, Mass. Grocery prices in the Northeast run more than 3% above the national average, and rose nearly 6% over the past year, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

A happily married straight woman says a photo taken of her for a salon she frequented was uploaded to a stock database and used in several unauthorized ways, such as an advertisement for Match.com's dating service and an article on coming out of the closet. Pharmaceutical rep Anne Read Lattimore sued Savannah photographer Roger Kirby, his company Blue Water Productions, Match.com, online marketing company Nanigans and The HealthCentral Network in Chatham County Court. Lattimore claims the defendants contributed "to the unauthorized use of her likeness in advertising depicting her either as a homosexual who has 'come out' …

Microsoft's new content for Xbox Live includes networks like SyFy, MSNBC, the Today Show, TMZ, and more. But Microsoft is also planning to showcase a new brand of TV ad, which it calls NuADs (for Natural User Ads). These new ads, which initially will have added interactivity such as clickable URLs, will soon also be able to take advantage of the Xbox Kinect functionality. An advertiser adds a URL and a call to action to its spots that can then be embedded in game or video content. Microsoft showcased a spot by Adidas that asked viewers …

German drug maker Merck KGaA will collaborate with Japanese drug maker Ono Pharmaceutical to develop oral therapies for cancer and multiple sclerosis, Merck KGaA said. The Merck Serono division of Merck KGaA, a separate company from U.S.-based Merck that operates as EMD in the United States and Canada, signed an agreement with Ono that gives it worldwide exclusive rights for development and commercialization of the MS drug ONO-4641 outside of Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Another license agreement gives Ono Japanese co-development and marketing rights to Stimuvax, an investigative cancer immunotherapy that stimulates the body's immune system to target …

Volkswagen is hoping its 2012 Passat will help give it the kind of sales volume in the U.S. that will make it as popular in this country as it is in China and Europe. VW has 2.5% of the U.S. market, compared with 14.5% in China and 12.4% in Europe. The 2012 Passat is larger, less expensive and better equipped than the previous model. Reviewer Mark Phelan gives his first-hand take on the new Passat and whether it delivers what it must to make a mark on this side of the pond.