Posts Tagged ‘Starbucks’

The free Starbucks Cup Magic for iPhone app gained attention for its entertaining Augmented Reality interaction with Red Cup beverages at Starbucks. You can see what I found for the latte I bought in the video embeddded below. However, if you are in the U.S., there is one more feature you might find useful: eGifting.

There are a variety of card designs to choose from. A message of up to 160 characters can be added to the card. Starbucks eGift Cards can be given in any amount you choose. However, the app provides preset options amounts too. eGifts are delivered via email and can be scheduled.

If you do not have an iPhone, you can use this web page to send Starbucks eGift cards.

https://www.starbucks.com/shop/card/egift

If you really need a good reason to make yet another trip to Starbucks, here’s one to consider. On November 15, apps for Android and iPhone will be released that uses Augmented Reality (AR) to bring characters encoded on the Starbucks red cups to life.
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It was a bold move on Schultz part to come out in public and hold a town hall to discuss our politicians failing to do their job. I am sure with more social media actions the campaign will grow. The campaign’s Facebook page grew a thousand more strong in just 15 minutes.

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Social Times’ Bilal Hameed picked up on iPhone apps being added to Starbucks’ Pick of the Week last week. Previously, the program provided a free song from iTunes every week. However, it seems Starbucks wasn’t quite done with making changes to the Pick of the Week program. This week Starbucks announced that in addition to a free song and free app, the Pick of the Week program would also provide free chapters from books from the iBookstore as well as free TV episodes andn “other media types” (presumably music videos).
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Starbucks, the coffee giant, is offering paid iPhone Apps for free to its customers. So next time you visit Starbucks make sure to grab the App on the menu for that week.

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I wrote yesterday about what appeared to be an unusual but interesting experiment by a lone developer who made his Starbucks card account useable by anyone. He did this by publishing the QR code that is displayed by the iPhone and Android Starbucks apps for payment when at a Starbucks. He asked that people refill the card and tweeted the amount of money held by the virtual card. Over $5,000 had been added to the card in 19 days since the start of the so-called experiment.

Twitter+Starbucks App Account = Social Coffee Experiment : Jonathan’s Card

However, the coffee business strategies blog (Andrew Hetzel) did a bit of detective work and concludes that Jonathan’s card is a Starbucks viral marketing campaign. Hetzel found that Jonathan Stark is Vice President of Application Architecture for Mobiquity which listed Starbucks as a client until the client page was removed.

Starbucks and the ‘Starkbucks’ Jonathan’s Card Viral Marketing Campaign

Was it a stunt paid for by Starbucks? If so, it was a clever one that got a lot of people to write about it and only cost $5000+ whatever fee Mobiquity received to run it.

There’s an interesting social experiment going on that involves a Twitter account, Starbucks mobile apps and a bit of web software development. The Twitter account is found here:

@jonathanscard

If you go there, you’ll see a series of mesages indicating money added to the Starbucks card account as well as when it is empty. During the period I watched the stream, it went zero several times in a single hour. It was also replenished in a single hour. So, what is going on there? The answer to that is on Jonathan Stark’s website for this odd little project:

Jonathan’s Card

Hi! I’m Jonathan Stark. You can download this picture of my Starbucks card to your phone and buy coffee at Starbucks with it. Seriously. My card gets charged, you don’t. Details are here.

If you’re feeling generous, you can also add money to my Starbucks card by doing this and enjoy some serious good karma.

You might guess that the card would simply go to zero once and then be unusable. And yet, that is not what is happending. Instead, it looks like people are refilling the card. Although the number is changing frequently, here’s what a snapshot of its activity looked like as of about 8pm Pacific Daylight Time on August 8, 2011.

Date started: July 20, 2011, 11:53:08 PDT
Number of times the card was used to buy something at Starbucks: 489
Number of times someone added funds to the card: 293
Amount added since the start of the experiment: $5,312.82

In the roughly 19 days this experiment has been going on, the card has been replenished at the rate of about $280 per day.

Via TechCrunch: I Am Jonathan’s Starbucks Card: A Social Payment Experiment (With Free Coffee)

Just last week I asked where the official Starbucks for Android app was in the development queue.
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The Starbucks Card Mobile for the iPhone is a great app for people who use Starbucks pre-paid cards. It lets you pay for a product by scanning a barcode on the iPhone’s screen. The balance of the card is updated almost instantly. I’ve long wondered why Starbucks does not provide an Android version of this app and asked this question again last week.
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appolicious advisor published an interesting interview with Starbucks Innovation’s Chuck Davidson about its mobile marketing strategy.

How Starbucks manages its mobile marketing blend

One of the questions appolicious asked was if an Android mobile payment app would be available. Davidson responded While we don’t have a launch date to share at this time, we can share that we are working on a version for Android.

Interestingly, I asked Adam Brotman, Starbucks VP for Digital Ventures, the same question last September (2010) during a Q&A session after his presentation at the ThinkMobile conference. The answer then (a bit over eight months ago) was the same.

Get Ready for Starbucks Digital Network This Fall – Optimized for Tablets

Starbucks’ Davidson noted that the myStarbucks information app was developed internally while the myStarbucks mobile payment app was developed by mFoundry.

Davidson dodged appolicious’ question about whether Starbucks considers the iPad and other tablets more in line with smartphones or PC/Mac-based web browsing. However, Starbucks’ Adam Brotman clearly stated that the Starbucks Digital Network website (only visible while in a Starbucks facility) was optimized touch-friendly for tablets and specifically for the iPad.

As for the most requested feature for the Starbucks mobile payment app? Davidson said it is the ability to transfer card balances to a favorite card.