Wal-Mart Launches Social-Powered Subscription Service

Wal-Mart's Silicon Valley social and e-commerce innovation hub may have lost two high-profile leaders this summer, but it continues to crank out projects as it prepares full-scale rollout of a food subscription service and a broader application of its Shopycat gift recommendation engine. The @WalmartLabs unit is broadly launching Goodies Co., a $7-a-month box of gourmet, organic, ethnic and specialty snacks hand-selected by its own employees after a beta test with 3,000 users that started in June. Subscribers who are active enough in rating, reviewing and touting the products can get Goodies boxes for free.