The Starbucks Digital Network is LIVE in the United States
The Starbucks Digital Network (SDN, for short) has officially gone live in U.S. Starbucks coffeehouses, offering rich and exclusive media content to all customers using the free Wi-Fi offered at every store. In a first-look over at Mashable, Starbucks’s Vice President of Digital Ventures Adam Brotman laid out some of the details.
“The vision is for Starbucks Digital Network to be a digital version of the community cork board that’s in all of our stores," said Brotman.
The network centers around six "channels"--Business and Careers, Entertainment, News, Wellness, "My Neighborhood" and a customer-personalized Starbucks channel--and Starbucks has already lined up an impressive array of partners for the service.
The New York Times will offer access to its Reader 2.0 subscription service for free, the Wall Street Journal is offering all content for free in Starbucks stores, the entertainment portion of the network will be populated by content from Apple's iTunes, mega-publisher Rodale will provide exclusive content for the Wellness channel, LinkedIn is providing extra-special features for Business and Careers, and Starbucks has even partnered with Patch, DonorsChoose.org, Foursquare, and Zagat to give customers an all-encompassing look at the community around that particular store.
All told, it's a remarkably impressive release, and one that showcases the influence Starbucks has in the media and technology world. One wonders if this could be the beginning of an entirely new business for Starbucks, making them a key player in much, much more than just the beverage and breakfast industries.
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