Marketing Pilgrim

Adobe used to be about tools. Tools that help people create things in an online world. Reader, Photoshop, Flash and other well known brands defined the company. That is until recently. The company has made many acquisitions and the shift toward a data / service orientation rather than the seller of products is made very obvious by the their latest acquisition Efficient Frontier.

As Bloomberg Businessweek reports

Adobe Systems Inc. said it would buy online-advertising company Efficient Frontier to gain software that lets marketers place ads on Google Inc.’s and Facebook Inc.’s websites.

OK I ‘ll get the cynical and sarcastic part of this thought out of the way right out of the gate. Why on earth would anyone turn to Walmart to make decisions for what gifts to buy for your friends and family? Well, when you consider that the source of the information is your friends’ and family’s information on Facebook you can relax and think “Ok, well maybe this might work.”

Walmart has used the talent of one of its acquisitions, Kosmix, to develop @WalmartLabs which is their arm for putting together apps like this one called ShopyCat. All Things Digital reported

Wal-Mart has launched its first Facebook application that helps people buy better gifts for their friends.