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22 May 2006
Coffee shop chain Starbucks plans to use its wireless internet connections to help launch a download music service to rival Apple's iTunes.
Starbucks hopes to market the service to the 40 million people it serves every day by expanding its hotspots to more coffee shops.
According to rumours, the firm is currently testing different options and could choose a service using Microsoft's Windows Media Player.
Starbucks already has three Hear Music stores currently on trial, offering one million songs and 10,000 music CDs for sale.
Customers can play a selection of songs and then buy a copy of any they like and have them burned to CD.
Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz plans to open 1,800 more cafes in the coming year and is thinking of introducing the Hear Music service in the UK.
Plans for a Starbucks music download service were first rumoured in December 2005.
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Do you agree?
In reply to last post.
Fall at a scale never before seen? Nonsense. Starbucks needs to hold its customers. And needless to say, it is actually possible to replicate a Starbucks Coffee, therefore what else would keep the youth in? Can you picture it? A group of friends gathered around a laptop "No download this one...oh thats a good song too." And there they are all sitting there drinking their coffee's and paying a buck a song to starbucks. Its BEAUTIFUL!
Posted by: Paul Columny 23 May 2006
40 millions customers?
How many of them actually hang around the store for any length of time?
Posted by: AFH 23 May 2006
Huge flaw in plan
The flaw (as reported) is the use of Windows Media Player. What a joke! 65% of portable music players are iPods and they are going to use WMP? Doomed to failure. Stick with coffee Starbucks, lest Apple starts selling coffee and does it right.
Posted by: TampaTom 22 May 2006
totally unreal
These guys sell coffee. This will fail on a scale never-before-seen. People think that delivering music online is some trivial thing. It is not. If I were an investor in Starbucks, I'd be scared silly right now. These guys are losing focus, and in a hurry.
Posted by: Tom 22 May 2006
Stretching the coffee shop paradigm ...
Hey! Let's go down the Starbucks and hang around a terminal ordering music and burning CDs! Damn! I spilled my coffee ... PZZZZAPTH!
Posted by: Fred Freehand 22 May 2006
Why not iTunes
Please yield on this one Steve. Sell iPods as well as I Tunes at Starbucks. They are linked to XMSR.. Recreate the debauched music industry. Where is the downside?
Posted by: johnvitell 22 May 2006
Buy a latte getta free Dell player
So that's what Dell did with all those unsold djs. Do the mindless drones that make my frappacinos also do tech support when things go wrong?
Posted by: Too much coffee man 22 May 2006