Wal-Mart, the retail giant that also happens  to be the number one employer in the world, has taken a slight turn with its strategy and has begun to focus on expanding its digital product portfolio.  Its latest move is the acquisition of OneRiot, a startup that helps companies to better target their social media and mobile ads.

Here’s the official announcement, released on the WalMart Labs blog:

“As a part of Walmart, we’re continuing to work with the intensity of a technology startup. Today I’m pumped to share the news that, within 30 days of that first meeting, we have closed a transaction to acquire the key assets of OneRiot. The technology team at OneRiot will move to Silicon Valley and become part of @WalmartLabs in September.”

OneRiot’s offerings, including Trending Ads and RiotWise, provide customers the ability to spot out the audiences they want to target.  OneRiot combs through massive amounts of data from Twitter, Facebook and other social media feeds, at which point it filters user profiles based on social influence, public messages, demographics etc.

WalMart’s digital business is gradually building up momentum.  Not too long ago the retailer launched VUDU for iPad.  VUDU is an online movie streaming service  WalMart acquired for $100 million last year.  The new app means it opened the service up to millions of new users, but it’s not unlikely Apple is going to be all over its new competitor.

WalMart is gaining from increased demand from mobile users and advertisers alike, but its competitors are making gains as well.  Millennial Media, the largest independent mobile ad network, added two new members to its management team.  It recruited former Qualcomm executive Isaac Babbs as its new senior vice president of business development, and Matt Gillis as SVP of Global Monetization Solutions.