Retailing giant Wal-Mart has made a deal to acquire a California social media startup company called Kosmix Corp. Wal-Mart said in announcing the acquisition that it intends for the deal to accelerate its social media and mobile commerce offerings.

The actual terms of the deal to acquire the Silicon Valley-based company were not disclosed, but the transaction is expected to close in the next month or two.

Kosmix business is to help filter and organize content in social networks to connect people with real-time information. San Diego mergers and acquisitions attorneys note that the founders of Kosmix had previously started an online shopping company called Junglee that was acquired in 1998 by Amazon.

Kosmix has a scanner that its customers can use to find web pages with references to people or organizations that maintain accounts on Twitter. The customer then gets those pages along with the tweets from their selected organizations or people.

Wal-Mart is investing in a strategy to integrate online shopping and shopping at its brick-and-mortar retail outlets. Kosmix will become part of Wal-Mart's @WalmartLabs, the unit formed to carry out the e-commerce integration.

A spokesman for Wal-Mart said the company is expanding its "capabilities in today's rapidly growing social commerce environment. Social networking and mobile applications are increasingly becoming a part of our customers' day-to-day lives globally, influencing how they think about shopping, both online and in retail stores."

Source: Market Watch "Wal-Mart Agrees To Acquire Social-Media Focused Kosmix" 4/18/2011