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Burnt Coffee and Burnt CDs
senzafine writes "Cnet reports that HP and Starbucks are jointly working on Storefront Coffeeshops which will allow people to browse and listen to music from a digital library...and have selected songs burned to cd. Sounds really cool...wonder how long before Starbucks and HP get John Doe lawsuits in the mail. --- But does this seem like an idea that would work?"
It sounds like a pretty good idea to me, but there seems to be one mistake in the post, I am pretty sure that they would go ahead and clear the music to be downloaded legally via iTunes or something like that, rather than illegally via P2P, and thus avoid any "John Doe" lawsuits.
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
...does that mean that the tunes sold in starbucks will be AAC?
I would hope not - while I don't claim to be one of the people who can hear the difference between 192KBps and 320KBps (and I certainly can't hear it on my equipment) I would not like to loose out on a lossless original. If I don't have a lossless hard copy then I'll end up loosing files, deleting them, accidentally compressing from the wrong source and generally messing things up. Call me stupid if you want, but with all my harddrives and computers and my MP3s on my phone/PDA and my iPod keeping track of what's where and which files are better quality, which are small enough to fit on x, y or z memory card etc. isn't easy. It's comforting to know I have an original in a jewel case with a lossless source.
The article states that Starbucks is working in conjunction with Hear Music. I know that in Chicago, there is (or was, havent been there in awhile) a Starbucks that had a Hear Music CD store next door. The two stores were connected, and you could bring your coffee in with you while you browsed for CDs and listened to music at the listening stations. Sounds like this is just a natural extension of that. And I think its a great idea. I'm not too optomistic about getting one in Pittsburgh, however, where the only common record store chain (NRM) is long since gone and bankrupt and a Virgin Megastore or even a Tower Records has never touched the shores of the Mon River. But I digress.
i think they do quite a bit in the hope of luring customers and getting them to linger to maybe buy a second round or other stuff. they play music, provide tables outside, sell newspapers, easy bwireless access.... i'm not that wild about their coffee buy will pay extra not to be told to leave right away. :)
also i suspect starbucks feels pressure to continually reinvent itself rather be perceived as yesterday's coffee news. notice how mcdonalds introduces new items of dubious value to get some buzz and quietly drops them later. (or such is my impression, i don't eat there anymore.)
now if only starbucks could make coffee that didn't taste burnt. i like underdogs, good luck peet's. we have an indy coffee place nearby that has *couches* and wireless..... i doubt the chains will go this far, that's just a bit too inviting.
You can just burn your iTunes purchases to DVD or CD from the iTunes GUI. Check their website for instructions, if you need 'em. I keep my iTunes library separate from my general media, since I don't want copy protected AAC files getting mixed in with my other crap.
I can tell a difference in 192k and 128k. Can't tell anything between 192k and 320k unless there's a lot of ambient sounds, trumpets and other instruments in the mid to high end being played at once. Mind you, in a silent room I hear a lot of high pitched distortion because I played the guitar too loud when I was a kid.
Let's say you're sitting at a Starbucks, drinking some coffee. You hear a song over the speakers you happen to like. All you have to do is call out: "Could I get this on a CD, please?" They burn you the CD. On your way out (or right then) you pick it up... It works perfectly together...
Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
I wouldn't consider a buck a song unreasonable if I could pick the songs, as opposed to paying $15 for a CD with one or two good songs and filler.
And who would buy a CD with one song on it? That would waste storage space. Just buy lots of songs (assuming they have a decently-sized library). They're not filler because you pick them. They need a minimum price per CD to cover the overheads associated with each CD.
Somebody tried something like this around 1990, IIRC. You would pick songs from a catalog and order them from a store (Newbury Comics in Boston was one dealer), and the company would send an audio cassette to the store so you could pick it up in a few days. I browsed the catalog, but they never had songs I was interested in (stuff from 10 years before that I didn't already have on CD), and they died before they could expand the catalog. (Ironically, I ended up buying a few regular CDs after hearing some songs I recognized but hadn't known who played them.)
um.....just why is it you hate the corporation? do you have a good reason, or is it a knee jerk reaction to the word "corporation"?
Burn to cd ? Not so useful. But burn to your iPod there and then.. now *that* would be good.
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
Here's what I posted on Wi-Fi Networking News about why Starbucks efforts are misguided:
Starbucks reportedly to offer music burning service in up to 2,500 stores: The system will allow customers to have CDs burned while they wait; eventually, it will also allow downloads of music over Wi-Fi, the article in BusinessWeek says.
Starbucks demanded a T-1 (1.544 Mbps in each direction) digital service infrastructure from its first hotspot partner, MobileStar, as well as its second, T-Mobile. I've speculated for a while on how this high-speed network could be used to cache material in each Starbucks, like movie and music downloads.
This latest project sounds somewhat misguided for the reason cited by the Forrester analyst in the article: Your typical barista may be great at making espresso but is not in a position to fix the broken CD burner.
My cousin Steven was involved almost 20 years ago with a company called Personics. The company had worked out a catalog licensing deal with more than 70 labels from the largest down to some independents to allow them to offer custom mix tapes for about a buck a song. This was a reasonable price in those days. The system had a few thousand songs mastered onto CD-ROMs stored in a special employee-operated CD-ROM changer behind the counter. An employee would punch in your choices, and the system created a high-speed cassette tape dub.
The company failed for two primary reasons: the hardware was proprietary, meaning that engineers had to fly around the country to fix it when it inevitably had glitches; and the catalog they offered too small because labels balked at including their most popular stuff for fear of cannibalizing pre-recorded CD and tape sales. (Price, my cousin reports, was not a problem: many customers were willing to pay even more, he noted to me after this item was originally posted.)
If Starbucks creates the expectation of an easy process that's always available and then isn't available even part of the time at any given store, they lose their audience. Starbucks makes its money from processing a high volume of custom drinks--you don't want to distract from that. CD burners aren't that difficult to keep operating, but a failure rate that's a fraction of that experienced by typical home and business users could be a dramatic problem in a high-expectation retail environment.
The article says the price is comparable to Apple and other download services. Two problems with that comparison. First, it's not. It's $7 for five songs, or 40 percent, or $13 for an album, or 30 percent higher. That's a significantly different price when you're dealing with price sensitivity. It's comparable to a mass-produced discounted audio CD.
Second, you're receiving an audio CD, not digital music per se, which could be a turnoff for the audience that might be interested in a fast, in-store music service. (However, since HP is the partner, and is reselling their own version of the iPod, it's possible that the ultimate digital delivery system will be a version of the iTunes Music Store.)
This is the latest incarnation of Compaq-cum-Hewlett Packard's attempts to capitalize on their relationship as a supplier to Starbucks. In January 2001, when the MobileStar deal was announced for installing hotspots, Starbucks made a big deal about Microsoft and Compaq's participation. Compaq wasn't a partner, though; Starbucks had signed a $100 million, five-year deal to buy equipment and services. Microsoft was a partner, and it never seemed to amount to anything that saw the light of day.
In the years since this deal, Compaq and then HP have reaped advertising benefits, appearing in full-page newspaper advertisements as part of the Starbucks hotspot system, even though they had nothing to do with MobileStar and T-Mobile's deployment. At one point, Starbucks had Compaq iPaq's available for customers to play with, and those disappeared, too.
It's this fumbling that's I orig
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
OK.. I like a coffee shop in Fort Collins CO that offers internet access.
This coffee shop has entered into no strategic alliances, nor has it spent a ton of money to get internet access.
Basically, what I am curious about is why HP and Starbucks are spending a lot of money hyping a new product line that any coffee shop with internet access offers.
Isn't this basically just a Starbucks using HP computers to hook to iTunes?
That's hardly a revolutionary concept.
I have already seen shops doing this. And, these days, HP on the label of a new innovative direction is a huge redflag. Is this really worth the investment for either company? Starbucks is adding a partner to sell it's own product and split the sales. HP is adding a retail component in an area outside it's expertise. And, the barrier to entry for competition is something like $100 a month..
Anyone with internet access and a couple cd burners at a coffee shop is competition as iTunes is *legal* for use.
Want to bet that they will be trying to roll that horrible IT contract Starbucks signed for internet access into this operation, then slam people with the charges to offset their losses in their regular stores? They were having a lot of customers balk at paying an internet access fee for coffee, but would that apply to a store that is an internet music store first?
Hear! Hear!
At least at starbucks they somewhat respect the coffee they make. Unlike most US places where the brewed coffee is left on the burner for days at a time, till it cakes to the bottom of the carafe...
I drink Strabucks for a reason only, they have spresso, and while the quality does leave some to be desired, it is at least moderate quality and above all consistent! This cannot be emphasized more, I hate places where I go in and get a decent shot, and when I go back it is like crap, just because they have a different barista or dated grounds or else...
Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.
Yeah, they do seem to over-roast a bit. I think they do this to cover the uneven quality of their beans. As "luxury" coffee goes, Starbucks ain't nothin' to write home about. They aren't using premium beans and their blends are distinguished only for their uniformity.
It bothers me that people assume coffee is good just because it's served with an Italian name and costs three bucks a serving.
I really like coffee and have spent some time teaching myself how to make a decent cup and be able to tell the difference between packaging and actual quality. Starbucks is going for nearly $8.00 a bag for beans these days (and is STILL not Fair Trade coffee, even at those outrageous prices). On the other hand, a comparable bag of Community Coffee French Roast is about three bucks. Properly prepared, there is no practical difference in the qualities of CCFR and Starbuck's House Blend. They use similar grades of coffee beans and arrive at the store with approximately the same degree of freshness.
There are plenty of expensive coffees out there really worth the money for their rarity, freshness, and blend. But they usually don't come in Starbucks wrappers.
For whatever it's worth.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Dude, Starbucks has quite possibly the worst espresso I've ever had. Little mom and pop shops in Philadelphia have much better coffe, at the same price, and even when they're inconsistent they're still 1000% better than starbucks espresso. Try a local coffee house chain. And Dunkin Donuts has better regular coffee than Starbuck's base.