Starbucks planning 50 million song giveaway for iTunes launch

We knew Starbucks was kicking off its new partnership with Apple on October 2nd, but apparently the 'bucks is pulling out all the stops for the launch with a 50 million song giveaway to start things off. From October 2nd to November 7th, baristas across the country will be handing out 1.5 million "Song of the day" cards each day, which can be redeemed at Apple's iTunes store -- though most stores won't have the free iTunes functionality set up for redeeming your prize in-store by the time the promotion ends. There will be 600 stores in New York and Seattle offering up free iTunes downloads via laptop, iPhone or iPod touch on October 2nd, with San Francisco to follow in early November. Starbucks will also start selling "digital release" cards that let you download a specific album online. Starbucks promises to upgrade a quarter of its stores to iTunes-fi by the end of the year, and roll out the functionality to its entire chain of WiFi shops by the end of 2009.

[Steve @ Sep 24th 2007 10:04AM]

No more doubt that Starbucks is really going full speed ahead to promote their integration with iTunes and getting the word out.
I wonder if after such deal Apple will not be signing up with some other business for similar partnership. But what will be more interesting will be to see how other iTunes Store competitors will react and what kind of partnership they are going to strike... The Zune technically should be the next one in line to get such similar deal, if anyone in business know what it it :-)

Steve
http://inewsonly.com
The first ZUI news aggregator for iPhone & iPod Touch

[blank @ Sep 24th 2007 10:21AM]

Rumor has it the Zune is to have a similar deal in the works with Dunkin Donuts...

[Jacob Varghese @ Sep 24th 2007 10:47AM]

Dunkin donuts?
They don't have enough of a presence.

They should align themselves with McDonalds. I heard McDees is planning on offering free wi-fi in all it's restaurants.

[WickedRetahded @ Sep 24th 2007 11:38AM]

"Dunkin donuts?
They don't have enough of a presence. "

I assume you haven't spent a lot of time south eastern New England. Aorunf here, you are hardpressed to find a Stabucks outside of the Mall, but D&D are everywhere. In a five mile circumference of where I sit right now, there are at least 12 - 20 Dunkin Donuts - not bull.
I wish there were Starbucks around here - D&D is the Starbucks to the lower IQ set, the ignorant, the uneducated, the most likely to have 'DUBS' on their Saturn and not be very political, or socially conscious. It is ghetto Starbucks.

[Colin @ Sep 24th 2007 12:35PM]

In Philly, Dunkin Donuts are _everywhere_. There's 4 within a 5 minute walk of my house now. When I lived in another section, there were about 20 within a 5 minute drive.

[noza @ Sep 24th 2007 12:51PM]

Woosh! that was the sound of the joke over all of your heads.

It's apropos though: Zune and Dunkin Donuts both appeal to fat dudes with stupid tattoos living in their mom's basement.

[blank @ Sep 24th 2007 2:27PM]

I was just joking! But the brown Zune matches the color scheme at Dunkin Donuts quite nicely...

[Todd @ Sep 24th 2007 10:22AM]

I just want to know when the iTunes WiFi will be added to my iPhone.

[trumpton @ Sep 24th 2007 10:25AM]

Doncha just love it when mighty corporates get jiggy with each other in a synergetic product-shifting embrace guaranteed to make life even harder for local independent cafes?

[Mathew @ Sep 24th 2007 10:31AM]

If they give away free tunes, then YES

[John Cavanagh @ Sep 24th 2007 10:38AM]

Tell me about it. I was a barista at a local coffee shop before Starbucks moved in and put us out of business. The really sad thing is, it's just a name.

[Big John @ Sep 24th 2007 11:51AM]

There are three independent coffee shops that I can think of within about half a mile of our local Starbucks. They are certainly more populated than Starbucks. Please, just because your local shop couldn't/didn't want to compete, don't apply that throughout the land.

[Alan Partridge @ Sep 24th 2007 12:13PM]

The tunes aren't 'free' as such you'll probably end up paying for it in the longrun. Either that or the Ethiopian coffee farmers are going to get another pay cut

[jmattick @ Sep 24th 2007 10:30AM]

iTunes Music Store has been giving away "Song of the Day" downloads since it's start...

Are they really giving anything new away or just clever marketing to the sheep... er... I mean, masses?

[x factor @ Sep 24th 2007 1:36PM]

yeah, no kidding...

[Ben Swain @ Sep 24th 2007 10:38AM]

Pay $5 for your coffee, get a "free" $0.99 cent song...sounds like a deal to me!

[pr @ Sep 24th 2007 10:51AM]

It kills me when people who order a fucking milkshake (Frappucino) bitch about the prices at Starbucks.

If you order coffee, Starbucks is not expensive at all.

[pr @ Sep 24th 2007 10:43AM]

You're wasting your breath complaining about Starbucks putting local cafes out of business. Starbucks is not going away and, across the United States, has had an overwhelmingly positive influence on coffee.

Sure, some good local cafes have been steamrolled in the process, but I live in Atlanta and I know where I can go to find a local cafe atmosphere if I want it. And in my personal experience, Starbucks is a serious upgrade over many of the local cafes that were forced out.

[trumpton @ Sep 24th 2007 11:02AM]

Starbucks coffee = "serious upgrade"

LOL!

[pr @ Sep 24th 2007 11:18AM]

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Popular does not always mean lower quality.

Starbucks is a serious upgrade over the vast majority of the coffee that was available pre-Starbucks.

[HineyWipe @ Sep 24th 2007 11:36AM]

Oh, and you have no idea what you are talking about. Ever hear of PEETS? Yeah, didn't think you did. Just because a coffee house doesn't go all "walmart" across the world, doesn't mean it sacrificed quality.

(Unlike Starbucks where I guess paying more means I am getting a better java?)

So get back on the subject, 50 MILLION FREE iTunes! Woot!

[pr @ Sep 24th 2007 11:51AM]

That was quite the straw man. What I said was:

Starbucks coffee is superior to the vast majority of the coffee that was available prior to their existence.

That you can find examples of small chains and independent cafes that you think are better means nothing. The fact is that if Starbucks never existed most people would still be drinking crap coffee from BP.

[noza @ Sep 24th 2007 12:58PM]

I agree... people call Starbucks the "Walmart" of coffee, but that's a bad analogy. They certainly don't compete on price. Most of the local cafes charge 25-50% less for a drink but they get pushed out anyway. Why? Starbucks is just a BETTER EXPERIENCE. Better coffee, better atmosphere, don't need a Film degree from NYU and 18 piercings to not feel out of place.

[Jacob Varghese @ Sep 24th 2007 10:50AM]

It would be great if Starbucks also provided free wifi access to all iphones and ipods. Now that would really benefit the consumer as well as both corps.

[kakapo @ Sep 24th 2007 11:04AM]

Your calculations of "all Strabucks" by the end of 2009 is only in the USA. Here in Australia and in Singapore there is no intention of putting them in. Global is the "world" of USofA.

And we have 10 Starbies in the brisbane area and more growing. Always busy! And good coffee and great service. We have Wifi through the Wh0re Telstra and it is VERY spendy. They will never give up that grip!

Cheers.

[njfuzzy @ Sep 24th 2007 11:11AM]

10 in the whole city? Here in the States, we get 10 Starbucks on the same street corner. ;)

[kakapo @ Sep 24th 2007 11:29AM]

When I lived in Vancuver BC - I was within a five minute walk of 20. If you need bragging rights... let me ask you how many kangaroos do you have on every corner! What I am saying is that we would like similar services. Will it happen? Probably not - but we do have several hundred other coffee shops - good quality not skank holes - in Brissie. How many Starbucks in Sydney? Heaps?

BTW - If you truly have 10 Strabucks on each street corner then the location manager for Starbuck domestic needs to take a few lessons from Big Maccas! AND by the way - I am from Hawaii - and have travelled extensively all over the US - can you tell me which corner ANYWHERE has 10 Starbucks on the same corner?

..|..

[Raj @ Sep 24th 2007 12:28PM]

That means there will be a new iPhone update... Most likely tomorrow which will allow the "1 million+" iPhone users to take advantage of the newest way to purchase iTunes music

[Hany Hanna @ Sep 24th 2007 11:28AM]

Does this news warrent this much comment? What fool pays 99 cents to apple for a song encoded in a limited format at 1/12th the quality of the original CD? What morons pay 5 bucks for coffee? What happened to humanity? How did everyone become mindless, mesmerized zombied consumers of illusions? A fool and his money are soon parted.

[WickedRetahded @ Sep 24th 2007 11:44AM]

Hey, Zany _ I just have to ask, did you post that using Windows or Mac?
Do you shop at Wal Mart?
and what do you drive?

[robt @ Sep 24th 2007 12:31PM]

Apparently all but the vastly superior, intellectually progressive, enlightened and just plain super people like yourself.

[Brad @ Sep 24th 2007 1:08PM]

@Hany: Where does your calculation of 1/12 come from? I mean, having worked in production in the music industry, I can tell you that many of the recordings done today are never touched in analog. DDD - digitally recorded, digitally edited, and digitally mastered. Given the cost-cutting measures in the industry at the moment, most content you get comes out AT BEST at the roughly the level of a 512kbps MP3. Pass your CD through a spectrum analyzer and see the stepping you get. The quality isn't that good on an original anymore.

@WickedRetahded: That was incredibly narrow minded, which isn't terribly surprising from someone with your screen name. Someone being picky about their music quality has very little to do with the other purchases in their life (cars, operating systems, whatever they buy at walmart). Grow up and actually make a point when you post, rather than just eluding to some vague connection between purchasing preferences and character.

[Zoesch @ Sep 24th 2007 2:35PM]

@Brad

Exactly (I also work in music production along other things) and if you consider that once it goes to mastering the song is gonna be squashed to hell (Curse Waves for L2) you get even less dynamic range and less perceived difference between lossy and lossless.

Then you have the reality of what most people can hear, except for a minority with great health, no exposure to loud noises, no degradation due to aging and perfect listening environments with proper sound treatment and balanced speaker setups the perceived difference is less.

Not that I'm excusing the industry at all, it's a shame that most music coming out is DOA after mastering, but people also tend to exaggerate when it comes to MP3/AAC quality, it's mostly psycho-acoustic perception at work rather than actual quality.

[The ZeroCorpse @ Sep 24th 2007 11:35AM]

First of all-- yeah, 10 in the whole city is a small number. Out here we have two in the same mall, and on the same street I count four more within four miles. The ones in the mall are a mere 100+ yards from each other.

I'm torn on this feature. While it sounds cool, it's also in Starbucks, and I'm not a fan of Starbucks. I prefer Beaners (soon to be called "Big B Coffee" because they're afraid of the racial overtones of their former name) for several reasons-- Lower price, better coffee, and it's not scalding hot when they serve it; You can actually drink it immediately.

Starbucks also makes you pay for WiFi Internet access, while Beaners does not.

[Big John @ Sep 24th 2007 11:59AM]

Our Beaners shops here in EL are overcrowded with the hip crowd. I actually like our Starbucks better since it's much more muted. We have a couple of independents around that are nicer too.

[The ZeroCorpse @ Sep 24th 2007 11:43AM]

Oops... That's "Biggby Coffee"

Not "Big B" coffee.

Phonetic error. My mistake.

[oshean @ Sep 24th 2007 11:45AM]

The giveaway is the crema on the launch.

[Stephen Lang @ Sep 24th 2007 1:13PM]

I like Beaners too.

Wait...you were talking about coffee?
(JK of course. The name change thing is kind of funny.)

[crescentdavid @ Sep 24th 2007 1:13PM]

I would have thought the "upper end" iPodians would much rather go with McDonald's, which beat Starbucks in taste tests.

Ah well ... maybe they can do a ChuckECheese tie-in as well.

[Joe Blo @ Sep 24th 2007 2:00PM]

Giving away low-bitrate , DRM-crippled "music" ?
NO THANKS. CD`s 4 me !

[Joe Blo @ Sep 24th 2007 2:10PM]

You are so right...I`m glad to see someone else "gets it".

[coffee @ Sep 24th 2007 4:13PM]

I prefer Starbucks now, because all the 'hip' anti-corporate people refuse to go there, and I can avoid their smell and pompous attitudes, which makes my simple venti black coffee even more worthwhile.

I'd call the whole Starbucks/Apple thing just a stunt, but then I have to consider Starbucks' CD publishing 'stunt', and that has been very successful.

Ahhh, who cares. I'm just going through the drive-thru anyway. I don't have time to sit inside and pretend to work while all my packets get sniffed, anyway.

[Gadget Chick @ Sep 24th 2007 4:28PM]

how about they release the friggin store for the iPhone already. im sick of waiting. anyone know when thats rolling out?

[ben @ Sep 24th 2007 5:54PM]

anyone else find it interesting that you can download the track of the day on an iphone inside of Starbucks....but the iphone is technically locked to AT&T, and Starbucks are T-Mobile hotspots? So it will take you twenty minutes to download a song on EDGE. But hey the lines at my local Starbucks are about that long...

[Dom @ Sep 24th 2007 9:54PM]

on a normal day id agree with "coffee" if you have a laptop/ipod/book and you want to get away from the 'hip' anti-corparate people for a while...

..then starbucks would normally be the choosen location...or atleast thats starbucks in the (uk)..

as for the itunes deal, best to wait until its been made official.. i dont wanna be as forth-coming saying every coffee = 'a free itunes song' lol...how that wud help starbucks i dont know..

its hard to imagine people suddenly appearing at starbucks for a coffee in light of a free itunes track...but then again they are people capable of doing that in this world:D