wmt

So, I wonder what kind of super-secret customer data mining activity is going on in the huge 125,000 square-foot Wal-Mart data center referenced in this article? Perhaps I should hire Tom Cruise to find out, but he'll need grappling hooks and spy tools to get in probably. Just what is going on inside this incredibly hush-hush building just 15 miles from Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas?

If you're a conspiracy theorist, you may imagine that facial-recognition and pattern-matching supercomputers are profiling as many customers as possible across Wal-Mart's stores all over the planet. You know those smoky globes perched all over the ceiling in Wal-Mart stores? These are cameras, folks. Your every move is being (perhaps) captured incognito everywhere you move in the store. It can see what you put in your basket, how you pay for it, and possibly, how much you shop at the same store and how often you buy certain products.

Well, That's getting a little out there, but you know what I mean. If you think companies and retailers you are doing business with are not using this kind of customer profiling and targeting information, you are probably living in the 1950s. It's going on everywhere as competitors fight for your mindshare and your dollars.

A quote from this story -- while not substantiated -- kind of rings true for the possible amount of data Wal-Mart is warehousing about its customers (and most likely the finest-tuned marketing intelligence on the planet): "Wal-Mart, according to a 2004 New York Times article, had enough storage capacity to contain twice the amount of all the information available on the Internet." Now folks, that is A LOT of data, you think?