Yep, that’s right – Wal Mart has started their own “Social” site called “The Hub” and refers to users as “Hubsters”. Check out the article in Advertising Age here, and check out “The Hub” here.

A telling quote from Mya Frazier’s Advertising Age article:

The tight controls will work against Wal-Mart’s goal to make the site more edgy and will instead cement the retailer’s image as a conformist brand, said Tim Stock, a researcher with New York-based Scenario DNA, a research firm devoted to studying Gen Y.

“The second you try to create boundaries and draw a line around content and put a box around content, it becomes something else. Teens aren’t searching for what a company deems relevant, but what they deem relevant,” Mr. Stock said. “You can’t own it. When anyone tries to own it too much, then it becomes a problem. That’s the impression I get on this site.”