• San Jose Mercury News, Monday, August 29, 2011 12:27 PM

Elsewhere in Wal-Mart world, Mercury News looks into the company's "start-up" ambitions. "Yes, Wal-Mart -- the behemoth of Bentonville, Ark., the fount of falling prices, the beyond-gigantic retailer -- has established an outpost [in Silicon Valley] in its search for start-up mojo," writes Mercury News.

@WalmartLabs, so-called, came to fruition a few months back when the retailer acquired an upstart named Kosmix for a reported $300 million. Kosmix apparently develops data-mining tools to analyze what consumers -- and young ones especially -- talk about on social media platforms. Wal-Mart desperately needs such insights as "its e-commerce prowess is lagging." Adds Mercury News: "That information could be used to steer shoppers to products based on their hobbies."

Or, the Kosmix technology could be used to analyze Twitter tweets in neighborhoods surrounding specific Wal-Mart stores. Potentially, "that intelligence could help store managers decide on inventory." No start-up novices, Kosmix co-founders Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan sold their previous company -- an early comparison-shopping site named Junglee -- to Amazon in 1998.

Read the whole story at San Jose Mercury News »