Wal-Mart Pulls “The Hub”

From PC Magazine:

Wal-Mart Stores has shut down “The Hub,” its attempt to cash in on the craze for social networking with a MySpace-like clone.

Visitors to The Hub web site on Wednesday morning were greeted with the message: “Sorry, but the School Your Way promotion has ended. You will be redirected to Walmart.com where you can always find the hottest fashions, music, and more all year long.”

Soon after The Hub launched in July, visitors to the site were reportedly turned off by “user” comments that promoted the site and Wal-Mart products, convincing some that the users were in fact hired spokespeople. Advertising Age called the site “highly sanitized and controlled”.

In a statement made to Arkansas paper The Morning News, however, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman characterized The Hub as “an online destination for students to preview the latest back-to-school fashions and merchandise at Wal-Mart while engaging in a creative contest to express their personality and style,” she said.

Interestingly, however, Wal-Mart has published its own MySpace page, which allows users to vote for their favorite musics, electronics, and “dorm room essentials”. The site’s “friends” also include past and present Wal-Mart employees.

Click here to read more about Wal-Mart’s marketing aimed at teens. 

Posted by Laura Jack on Wednesday, October 04, 2006

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