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Facebook and Wal-Mart Join Forces
Jeremiah Cornelius writes "Wal-Mart — the retail king of Big Data analytics — will be meeting Mark Zuckerberg for two days in Bentonville, to 'deepen' their relationship with Facebook. The CEO-level strategy summit is intended to bolster the relationship between the world's No. 1 social network and the world's largest retailer. Wal-Mart has been left in the dust online by the behemoth Amazon. An alliance may be poised to challenge this dominance, particularly in light of Amazon's planned foray into same-day delivery nationwide. The companies share James Breyer, who sits on the boards of both Facebook and Wal-Mart. Adding another angle to this, Yahoo's new CEO, Marissa Mayer, was elected to Wal-Mart's board in early June, while she was still at Google. Earlier this month, Facebook and Yahoo settled a patent dispute and announced plans to form another 'strategic alliance' involving advertising and distribution. The implications for online privacy in this series of relationships are uncertain."
Great, at least I can now channel all my negative thougts to one partnership.
Facebook and Wal-Mart. That's certainly a marriage made in... well, somewhere significant definitely.
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...Because this isn't at all like the current Doctor Who / Star Trek: Next Generation crossover series where the Borg team up with the Cybermen, is it?
It's extremely simple.
Wal-Mart's website sucks on a level that is so difficult to describe I would simply advise visiting it to see for yourself.
It's like someone took a hundred teenagers and told them to build a retail website. Nothing fits together right, product descriptions are wrong, incomplete, confusing, and difficult to read. The site itself is difficult to navigate. The search engine is a joke.
All that comes together to create this conglomeration of a website that doesn't fit together well and has no hope of building an online community - which is what it takes for any website to be successful.
The only exception might be their photo website, which I would give a C if I were to grade it. It's at least functional - though for the world's largest retailer, it's much less than anyone would expect.
They also are failing to use their biggest advantage - they've got DCs and retail fronts EVERYWHERE. Yet their shipping is not competitive at all, let a lone their prices. More often then not, you can save a substantial amount of money visiting their store vs online. Their marketing on their own website is terrible, too.
I'm not sure what facebook is going to do for them, I think it shows how out-of-touch with their own failings the corporations executives are. Clearly they don't understand the problem, which to me says they need to replace not just a few but a lot of the management around their internet presence.
"The implications for online privacy in this series of relationships are uncertain."
I think they are very certain. This will, as with every collaboration of large corporations who seek and retain your information, result in increased use of personal (and often private) information to increase the market and profits of the corporation. Any possible benefit to the customer will be inconsequential and very debatable.
Use facebook? Expect a confusing change in privacy policy to follow, with associated double-speak explanation that demonstrates how it's all being done for your benefit, not theirs. Thereafter expect to have a relationship with Walmart on a personal level you may not be comfortable with, whether you shop there or not.
Stop by the ATM machine before going to Wal-Mart so I can pay with cash.
They will rule the galaxy as father and son!
= FaceMart
Not that I needed one more reason since I already have enough.
It's almost as if they were intentionally trying to create the biggest, most evil company ever known to man.
When two or more companies that have no idea what they're doing join forces and convince themselves that, somehow together, they'll master the situation due to "synergy" or some other vague buzzword. It seemed like a lot of this happened when the first dot-com bubble burst, too.
#DeleteChrome
Awesome. Explosive diarrhea and terminal flatulence are now working together for an even more body-wretching experience...
WalMart and FaceBook offer things that people seem willing to exchange money/information for. You can opt out anytime.
Whatever shenanigans they do pull are done through their enforcement arm, the government. Try opting out of that.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
"Facebook meets with Wal-Mart - it is a wretched hive of scum and villainy."
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
While I'm sure Walmart's retail sales are probably solid, they kind of seem to be past their glory days somewhat. Many areas still resist a Wal Mart opening, there has been a lot of bad press and some court losses over labor practices, and so on. Lots of competion online from Amazon and in-store from Target, whose stores don't have the look or feel of a third-world bazaar.
Facebook, while still widely used, recently had some bad press about a slight downtick in membership, their IPO was something of a clusterfuck and the stock price has continued to decline as people speculate about their future and ability to generate revenue growth while facing constant bad press over repeated and widely criticized changes that undo privacy settings or expose information users had assumed was private.
So two companies kind of past their peak, facing pressure and uncertainty. I see why they turn to each other, but individually neither one seems to really burnish the reputation of the other, especially for Facebook, for whom a partnership seems to create a small-town, low-income kind of image.
They already have one. Here.
Have gnu, will travel.
This will be the greatest melding of core-comptencies since Microsoft and NBC...
'Jane Smith just purchased Herceptin Herpes Medication and KY Jelly at Podunk Walmart [53 People Like This]'
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Once the hot new social network comes out, then they'll give some other evil bastard money.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The Summary says, "the implications for privacy are uncertain." I say, what, are you blind? The implications are certain - certainly BAD.
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
http://www.walmartmovie.com/facts.php/
If you don't like them, don't shop there or use their services. I sure as hell don't.
Not to mention I'm tired of social media being crammed down our throats. I can't wait for that bubble to burst.
I live a wallmart and rapebook free life, and so can you.
I was hoping the story linked under "Big Data analytics" would be interesting but it wasn't. It only has vague statements and a couple small examples. A much better story is "Target knows you're pregnant" from earlier this year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I had a boss do that once, I surprised the hell out of everyone when I showed up at work. (My brother, Maharishi Bob, was a sight when he dropped by later as I'd given him my ticket. Mick Jagger threw a bucket of water at him.)
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Now is the time to get out.
"The man who founded Walmart" would most likely despise what his company has become, or I guess love it because he can start a NewMart that can offer even lower prices by actually having literal slave labor create goods for his virtual wage slaves. The moment Sam Walton died the jackals came in and took what was a well intended idea (having US manufacturers compete with foreign by lowering costs) and turned it into the poster child of corporate greed and scumbaggery: Lowering the standards of living for literally 10's of millions by driving a race to the bottom in wages and product quality. Remember the last time you saw a "Made In America" banner on every other rack in a walmart, probably around 1992ish? They were probably burning the signs at his wake.
but after this whole business with Bing, it's really starting to look like Facebook is aligning itself with losers.
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Thanks for that.
Set your phasers on "funky"!