and fewer calories, america's beverage companies are delivering. this week, two men changing the way you shop and rock. serial entrepreneur charges the future of wal-mart and day trotters shawn muller using the internet to draw music's biggest band it small town illinois. our reporters of "fortune" this week on "press:here." >> good morning everyone, i'm scott mcgrew. the word wal-mart conjures up many images. it can mean big box retail or certain echo socio economic

region. it is one of the most innovatist companies in america. >> and it's this man who's doing the innovating. a ano one roger wallman, head of wal-mart labs. his office in silicon valley look nothing like a wal-mart. in fact the closest wal-mart store is 17 miles away, across the san francisco bay in oakland. but it's here where roger ronman thinks about the future of retailing. particularly jn line. now web has his work cut out for him. wal-mart may be the biggest retailer in the real world, but amazon is the biggest retailer on-line. amazon's success, thanks in large part to, roger ronman. he is a former amazon executive. his ideas are behind much of that company's success. >> anan roger ronman is a serial

entrepreneur. he is also one of the earliest investors in facebook and not once, but twice, apparently had the opportunity to buy google. joint by kate mets of wired magazine. mccall of "fortune" as well. we could start in so many places but let's start in the competition between you and amazon. you were a key figure at amazon that helped amazon grow into what it is today. >> thanks for saying that. it is a little bit of an exaggeration to say i'm a key figure. i played a small part. >> it's team effort. we heard it all before. you were a key figure in amazon. much of what you're doing is competing with something that you, yourself, had helped set up. >> in way, that's true. my first company that i started back in 1998 was like amson and i worked at am zon for two years from '98 to 2000.

it helped amazon become who they are today. >> the third party retailer. >> right. >> along with other things as well. is it true you were one of the brangs behind the mechanical turp project. >> the mechanical turp, i held the patent to -- >> can you explain the mechanical turp to the viewer? >> it is fascinating. if you're a programmer and it needs to be updated and a computer can't complete that task for you, you basically reach out to a world of real people, on-line, who might be able to solve you solve this particular task. >> for the idea was, that people are really good at some tackses and computers are really good at some tasks. you put people and computers together. that was the idea behind it. and we thought it was a cool idea. and he came up with the name, not me. >> we didn't know that. >> historical reference. >> tell us the great story about

the chess playing turk. >> i don't know exactly when, there were all these cafes and there would be chess competitions in the cafes and this guy came up with a chess playing robot. and you know, eventually they found out it was a human inside who was playing the moves. >> which is very different from the other stuf you've done, right? most of the other stuff is automated. sort of like the google stats. i are building search engines, shopping search engines for instance that are analyzing data. and then automatically producing information. which is very different from the mechanical turk. i mean, the mechanical turk idea still play into your work? >> you know, at end of the day, right, business success involves combining humans and algo rhythms to achieve the best. it is ails fascinating to see what parts after task are done

by humans and what parts are best done by al go rhythms. so it is matter of putting them together. >> what does this mean for wal-mart, traditionally, it is an incredible logistics, what wal-mart does. but at the end of the day, they sell things out of a store. what can you bring that's new and forward-thinking to wal-mart? >> so the way to tell the story is that in the way people shop changes once in a while, right? so 15 years ago there was an inflexion point when ecomers were cemented and that changed the way we shopped. we can buy on-line. right now we are in the midst of another inflexion point. another change in the way people are shopping, with mobile. with 41% of americans or so carry smart phones. and they carry them wherever they go in shopping malls and so on. and almost everybody is on facebook.

and so people spend more and more time on mobile. maybe shop changes. >> you aren't really focused on retail in your previous company, cosmics, which was acquired by wal-mart. what were you doing some. >> so the company i co-founded off, we were working in the state of social media and analyzing what people are saying on facebook and twitter and use that to input interesting things. like what is the hottest store rye right now. what is the most news worthy story right now. is somebody into hiking or biking or adventure sports based on what they say on facebook. >> what can you do with the fact that i like hiking but hate biking? and i have friends -- >> and i'm pregnant before i even know it, according to recent comments by target. >> i won't comment on target. >> is she pregnant? >> depends. i would have had to have been buying lotion answers supplements according to this

recent article about target. >> oh, i see, you're associating the recent things. >> yes. >> can you know months before the baby arrives, at least, that baby is on the way and then you can send out coupons for diapers and formula and whatever else. >> that's a fascinating article. so we are not doing exactly that. to get back to your previous question, all of this useful information from social media, stand back and think about retail. we have lots of information or product. we have information with customers. making the best connection. that's what retail is all about and that's what -- it's going to be that. now what social media gives us, a new source of information. and there are draw backs. that we can use to make better connections. let me give you an example. during the holiday season we launched shoppy-cat tp it is a facebook app. it helps you make better gift

purchases for your friends. if you have a friend and you don't know what to buy for them. go to shoppy-kat. it action sayses thing have you on facebook. it looks up information saying, scott is a biker. you might want to get him this as a gift. >> get into my profile and analyze among men of a certain age, of a certain zip code et cetera, who like this particular ban or this bike shop. this might be a helpful gift. >> and that's why -- it is actually more. you may have liked some specific gear or you may have said, look, i went for a bike ride or you may have said this three or four times. and you are actually a mountain biker and you might like some kind of gear. >> do you have numbers yet on how many people have used shoppy-cat to transfer that into real purchases. we have talked about that before. i have tried shoppy-cat. even your friend that aren't on it, you can get recommendations

for everybody. but how many people -- yeah, for your friend, people in your network. but how many people are then taking that and making purchases on wal-mart.com. >> so there is two parts to that question. how many people are actually using it. we have 130,000 installed so far for shoppy-cat. which is significant, it's only been out a cup of el of months. when they spend 15 minutes on shoppy-cat, looking at gift idea for friends. so that's a fairly significant amount of time. one of the things about shoppy-cat is the gifts are not necessarily always from wal-mart. this is what we have done with shoppy-cat. >> how do you get past wal-mart? >> what we did is explain to the customer about the proposition. it all comes down to how you create the best gifting experience. and it is really a pattern that while wal-mart has a huge

product department, there is a department which we may not have the best gift. we need to open it up to other retailers. so the gifts aren't from wal-mart but from other retailers depending on what it is. >> we will take a quick break for a commercial and be back in just a moment.

welcome back. we're talking to anand rajaraman of. >> scott, mentioned you had not one but two opportunity to buy google. were you close or similar research areas or -- >> you know, we came into stanford in the same year in 1993. there was a time when when we

share an office. and which we called the zoo. and we were both in the zoo together for a while. >> he came to you and offered to sell, is that right? or how does that work? >> this is ancient history. >> this is google we're talking about. fascinating ancient history. >> larry and sonja were working on google and it wasn't clear, you know, and they discussed possible ways of exiting the company and i was part of it. >> what was the price tag in was it discussed? >> it was something like a million dollars or something. >> any regrets there? >> post it on facebook. >> there you go. >> not looking back. >> for viewers just joining us, oh, my god, he had a chance it buy google for a million dollars. you sold a couple of companies for some money. you've been very successful in your own right. >> thank you, yes. >> why do you work?

you sold for $250 million? >> yeah something like this. >> okay a quarter billion here and a quarter billion there. you don't have to get up in the morning to go to wal-mart labs, but you do. >> well, the dream of a technologist, what they do impacts millions of people tp. they create and it makes a difference. that's what we dream of. that's what gets me up in the morning. to make an impact on millions of people. >> are you able to recruit well? i mean, wal-mart, it's not twitter. ity's not pinterest for goodness sakes. are you able to recruit and say, it's wal-mart and we are doing neat stuff. >> one of the things about wal-mart stuff, we are small organization. we are 200 people or less. it is small organization, so everybody knows everybody else. we take lists. we have time lines. we launch shoppy-cat in less

than six months for instance. so we are very much like a product. yet we have all of the resources of the big organization, including access to millions and millions of customers. so we have a big canvas it paint on. we can make an impact on millions and millions of people. that's what, you know, that's been a big draw. to attract people from many, many different companies, including google. and anyone can be hired and in social or mobile or big data. we have to compete for the google of the world and facebooks of the world. because of the alignment that we have, i believe has aspect for large companies and large people. >> what's on the way? what are you work willing on now that's coming down the road? >> we won't tell anybody. >> one of the things i'm excited about, i mentioned shoppy-cat. another thing is called, get on the shelf. this is an idea that is a developer at wal-mart labs came up with a few months ago and he just came out of it, came out of

the blue. and we encouraged him to take a forward and we just launched it a couple months ago. we carry product at wal-mart but there are thousands and thousands of inventors in america that may have interesting ideas or products but don't know how to get it on the shelves in wal-mart. so you can make a video of your product, upload it on get on the shelf.com, and we let people vote on it. we guarantee that winner will get on wal-mart shelves. >> interesting. sounds like a brick and morter version of what you did at amazon with third party retailers. >> that's right. but brick and mortar has limited shelf space to compete. at least this is open to the entire public. it has hopefully discovered unique product that you would not have. you have over 3,000 entries and so you should go there and watch. >> getontheshelf.com.

>> yes. >> anand from wal-mart labs. thanks for being with us. >> thank you. >> rock & roll on a place called rock island when "press:here" continues.

well couple back to "press:here." if there's one thing that the internet has proven is that place is no longer important. for instance, some of the hottest music on-line is born in a small farm town on the border of illinois and iowa. rolling stone magazine point out rock island illinois may not be an island, but it's definitely rock. ♪ ♪ >> the town of 40,000 right on the mississippi river is home to horse shack studios and the music blog, day trotter. bands flock to this small studio

because this is the new hot place to get noticed. as many as seven bands a week pass through. offering their music to shawn moler. no contracts are signed. bands don't even get to choose their own artwork. the music is posted on-line in raw form for anyone to download. now the intention of day trotter is to find new music. though lately big names have tried their best to get through the door. shawn moler grew up on farm, says he could watch the tour busses belonging to rock and roll busses pass his town by on interstate 80. he is joined by kate mets of wired, mccall of "fortune." you're now so successful, aren't you, is that the danger that somebody else needs to make another day trotter for the bands that don't get into day trotter. >> well, we don't want anybody to do that. >> a huge film festival.

an alternative to. at some point sundance got so big that somebody said we need a sundance for sundance. >> right. >> do they need a day trotter for day trotter? >> probably not. we just recently started having other branchs as far as other studios that we work out of. places we have gone to record in the past, that we've gotten to like the people and feel we can get as good as a sound as we get back home tp there's a couple of places we just started our london studio a couple weeks ago. we do things out here frequently. we have a studio in austin. a studio in nashville and a place we use every once in a while in montreal. >> how did you get started doing this? are you a musician? >> i was writing back home. i went to university of iowa for journalism. and started -- >> you're not doing this. >> i did it for a long time. i started in high school

answering phones. like how a lot of people get started in the newspaper business. i worked in the sports department for a long time. i would come back from school in the summer, winter breaks or whatever, christmas. and write. and i worked there for like 12 years. and you know, it was just something that i wanted. i kept trying to weasel into the entertainment, trying to write more about music and do the things that i really wanted to do. >> and you weaseled in from rock island, illinois. it is one thing to pack up and move to hollywood. it is another way it have hollywood, nashville and everybody comes to you. >> i understand you saw tour busses passing by. how did you get them to stop? the studio first, website first? >> the stud dwro was first. it was -- you know, i always think about it, kind of talk about it, where when we started six years ago, the internet obviously the internet had been around for a long time at that

point, but what we do was still kind of -- there's always been radio sections and people put in a couple songs to get people to come out to shows that night. that has always been that thing but when we started doing this, it was novel. now most are video, a lot of people do video sessions now. but when we started this, it was a new idea for the most part. and you know, we were right in the middle of all these big midwestern cities. it seems crazy for new york city it say, oh, yeah, here close to madison which is three hours away or chicago which is three hours away. that seems absurd. but in the midwest, we are in the center of every big midwestern city. pretty easy drivable distance. they probably don't have a horrendous drive to the next show. you are able to talk people into it. it was something they weren't getting bombarded with all of inquiries about stopping in to do sessions. like now, it's a pretty regular

thing for somebody, you know, a band to get asked to do dozens and dozens of sessions. >> anyone that we would recognize? >> yeah all kind of people. we taped chris kristofferson. >> actually made a list. >> tokyo police club. mountain goats. ing rid mike elson. are there bands you've said no to? like they're too big? >> it's not saying no to bands too big. i had a pretty specific year. >> so it's about what you like. >> about what i like. everybody at day trotter has been hand-chosen by me. you say no to -- you mostly say no to bands that i feel we can't do a good job with or you know,

bands that maybe just a need a little bit more time. because there are certainly bands that we've recorded that i said no to a few times. because i didn't think they were good enough. >> did you ever in your whole life think you would say, you know, sometimes band have to mature. you were so powerful in the music industry that you get to say that and, serious. >> well, i mean, it's for real though. >> yeah, for real. >> i get e-mails from somebody saying, we just started a band, we've been together a couple months, played a few shows. >> well you might be fans of the site but that doesn't work yet. there is in way i can help you yet. >> but a young show on muller would have never dreamed he would answer phones at quad city hair ald or whatever. >> quad city times. >> that i would crush -- >> the sphere. >> it's weird how things happen. >> you're right. this was very much a new thing but a lot of people compare this

to the bbc. was that a model. >> not really. i didn't really start reading about john until after people started making the comparisons. i obviously knew what he did. who hasn't. >> explain what he did and do you see the same lair its? >> there are some similarities. he used to take a lot of time. obviously, there are secs at studio there at bbc. but he add studio at his home where he would kind of invite his favorite bands to do, you know, a couple day sessions. so these would be like, sessions that are essentially the length of ours. four songs, five songs, that you know, they would take a long time. it was more like making a record. but the spirit of it, the kind of you know, this is what happened that day, sort of essence of it, is essentially what we try to capture everyday. >> do you think the internet is good for indy artist? it definitely hasn't been that good for the large record labels and large -- >> i think it's an incredible

thing. we have talked about it a lot in interviews and things like that. people ask how i see these music industry. what do you think about the health of it? i mean, there's plenty of people that want it do the whole dooms day thing. but i think the fact of the matter is that there are so many more opportunities right now for you, if you're a musician, than there ever have been before. >> exposure, definitely bp but to make money? >> well, even just looking at something like a kick starter. thing. a band can ask their fans to help them, in a very direct way, ask them to fund making a record. fund going on tour. and you know, those modes of letting the people that like what you do, support you in other ways than just buying a record or coming to sigh play, there are so many more of those. i think -- >> has anybody that you discovered it made it really big. >> yeah, a bunch of people.

>> like who? >> well we take the fleet foxers. we taped them on the day when they played noise pop, four years ago or so, and it was the first show they played outside of seattle. we taped them on that day. >> and if i read my notes wrong of course, won a grammy. >> won a grammy. >> we have about 30 seconds left. i tweeted, hey, shawn moler is going to be on the show. so the st. giants, and also the heart sick growns, their swedish pop, and they would like to get your attention as well. >> good name. >> so go heart sick growns. >> okay. >> thank you. >> you bet. thank you. >> we'll be back? just a minute.

that's our show for this week. if you missed the top of our show, we press all of our episodes on the internet.

all complete and for free. check out day trotter. look the elliott whitmore, a banjo player from iowa. trust me, it's better than you think. i'm scott mcgrew. thank you for making us part of your sunday morning. reti.re that's 1 million blank chalkboards.1 million empty parking spaces, and 1 million opportunities to share your passions with students. you'll want to be a teacher like my father was the more you know.