Walmart Buys Ad Targeting Firm OneRiot

Walmart bolstered its in-house digital marketing capabilities with the acquisition of OneRiot, which was announced via the retailer's blog on Tuesday. The acquired Boulder, CO-based company uses interest-level data from Twitter, Facebook, and other social media channels to target ads.

OneRiot will be plugged into the retailer's @WalmartLabs technology initiative, following up on the heels of the Bentonville, AR-based company's mid-April purchase of Kosmix, a social media and search platform.

Overall, the @WalmartLabs effort is being designed to create technologies that propel the multi-channel brand as a social-mobile commerce player in the years to come. The OneRiot team will join that effort later this month similarly to how Kosmix founders Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan were integrated last spring.

Rajaraman authored last night's blog post, saying: "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."