Wal-Mart out of SN, Army isn't

It kind of goes to show you can't fool social networkers. Wal-Mart's stab at a social site called "The Hub" has ended. "The site, temporarily launched this summer as a promotion for the start of the school year, aimed to copy Myspace et al by encouraging ‘hubsters’ to set up their own personalised Web pages," e-Consultancy reports. "Apparently, features such as parental approval and photos like the one [shown on the e-Consultancy page] weren't as appealing as hoped." Maybe it means that if you're advertising, don't clothe your intentions in social-networking disguise. Maybe Wal-Mart should've established a profile at MySpace instead, as the Army and Marines have (see the Asia Times). It'll be interesting to see how military recruiting on the social Web goes. The Army plans to reach parents, too, according to the Asia Times commentary, through AOL, "where it will launch "a social networking site for parents."