Burnt Coffee and Burnt CDs 256
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?"
Would it work? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Would it work? (Score:5, Informative)
You get 5 tracks for $6.99 and $1 per each track after 5. With your CD you get a custom designed cardboard package with user designed 4 color insert) plus a four color image (and your CD title) printed on the CD itself (no sharpies used here).
Re:Would it work? (Score:2)
Being able to, say, put all four parts of Rush's Fear trilogy(?) on a single disc would be kinda useful...
Re:Would it work? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Would it work? (Score:5, Insightful)
Starbucks, in Canada, charges $2.10 for a Venti coffee. The mom and pop down the street charges $2.00 for a large coffee. A Tim Hortons doughnut shop across the street charges $1.50 for an extra large coffee, and the gas station near my house charges $1.35 for a large coffee.
The mom and pop serves "premium" coffee, like starbucks. The tim hortons sells generic coffee, like safeway. The gas station sells battery acid, like home depot.
What then of this myth of the overpriced coffee? I'm getting a cup of coffee, with all the added marketing (think buying coca-cola vs buying western family/president's choice) for 50 cents more than "regular" coffee take-out, and 65 cents more than the most vile substance on earth (that stuff strips paint, i swear to god).
I'm not defending starbucks, I hate the corporation... I just think the argument about $3,000 cups of coffee doesn't hold any weight
Re:Would it work? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Would it work? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Would it work? (Score:3, Interesting)
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 th
Why is a buck unreasonable? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.)
Re:Why is a buck unreasonable? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've done it, and it sucks and I've sold the CDs since then. I think this is a great way to market a product that we have been asking for at least a 5 years now.
I don't know about you, but many times I see the comercials on TV for greatest hits of some decade, or some other theme, I like a good many of them. One hit wonders are sometimes cool. But definetly not worth the price of a whole CD just to get one song. Especially since it may not be that great piec
Music sharing may be legal in US too! 17 USC 1008 (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to calm the rhetoric. Sure, common sense would indicate the RIAA's copyrights have been violated. But copyright has been heavily legislated over the past century to the point that common sense or common law is nearly absent. It has such things as compulsory licences and device royalties. Morality should be confined to governing personal actions and advocating revisions to intellectual property law. It is disingenuous for the RIAA to invoke morality when if anything they have had excessive influence in crafting legislation.
IANAL but lets look at the law. Once you know the tokens, legalese is not usually harder to parse than APL :) Apologies for a
US-centric viewpoint but I believe a statutory situation exists in
all other common-law countries with different details. There's an
excellent copy of the United States Code, Title 17 - Copyrights at Cornell [cornell.edu].
Chapter 10 covers DIGITAL AUDIO RECORDING DEVICES AND MEDIA .
Particularly interesting is:
Sec. 1008. - Prohibition on certain infringement actions... No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings
Simply breathtaking! The words "this title" mean Title 17, which contains all of US copyright law. The first "based on" means these things are not actionable as contributory negligence ("burglars tools"). The second "based on" means non-commercial use of these things does not violate copyright. Wow!
The definitions in Sec.1001 would seem to include computers. They sure are designed, advertised and used that way amongst others. But all is not [Guns'N'] roses. The manufacturers of these recording devices would seem to owe a device tax that gets paid through the Librarian-of-Congress (of all people!) to the RIAA as specified. There are also requirements related to the Serial Copy Management System. I trust that RIAA have settled this with their long-standing antagonists, appliance manufacturers, now including Dell, HP, et al. But even if not, how does it affect me?
The term "noncommercial use" would almost certainly cover receiving music files to make recordings on a hard-disk. Offering to transmit music files might not be covered and fall under the exceptionally byzantine Sec.114 as an "interactive service". But a lawyer specialising in Copyright law should be able to give a better interpretation including case precedents. The Diamond Rio MP3 player case [gigalaw.com] is probably relevant. Is there a lawyer in the house?
You're an idiot (Score:3, Informative)
Sec. 1002. - Incorporation of copying controls
No person shall import, manufacture, or distribute any digital audio recording device or digital audio interface device that does not conform to -
(1)
the Serial Copy Management System;
Computers do not conform to SCMS. So either computers are illegal or computers cannot be considered a digital audio recording device. It's your choice. I'd rather pick choice #2.
Re:Music sharing may be legal in US too! 17 USC 10 (Score:4, Informative)
In short: It states that the manufactures are not responsible for what the customers choose to do with their products. I don't know where you drew from this that the customers therefore have the right to "the "sharing" of digital music files".
Re:Music sharing may be legal in US too! 17 USC 10 (Score:2)
So your interpretation of the law differs from his..? Why is yours correct and his incorrect?
Re:Music sharing may be legal in US too! 17 USC 10 (Score:3, Informative)
Because the original poster's is wrong, maybe?
Look at the piece that the original poster even pasted:
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium...
It's clear as day that they are talking about manufacturing/importing/distribution devices or mediums...
Re:Music sharing may be legal in US too! 17 USC 10 (Score:2)
Essentially, you can make a copy of a song from deck to deck and hand it off to anyone. It's a perfectly legal copy.
That is why you pay your tax on cd's and other audio recording medium.
I don't know the particulars on the limits and whats classified as a recording device. Certainly, distributing mp3's via your favorite network transmission does not fall under this act.
Re:Music sharing may be legal in US too! 17 USC 10 (Score:2)
iTunes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:iTunes (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
spelling nazi... (Score:3, Informative)
lose [reference.com]
Re:spelling nazi... (Score:5, Funny)
loser. [reference.com]
Re:iTunes (Score:5, Funny)
Am I in a minority of people now who know how to spell the word LOSE?
It's LOSE not LOOSE. LOOSE means slack and RHYMES WITH NOOSE as in rope to kill yourself with.
LOSE RHYMES WITH BOOZE.
LOOSER is what something is when it is made not quite so tight.
LOSER is probably the name people are now going to throw in my general direction. Screw my karma rating. Learn to fricking spell people, you're (that's "you're" with an apostrophe because it's ("it's" with an apostrophe because it's short for "it is") short for "you are" and not "your" because it belongs to you) supposed to be educated.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:iTunes (Score:3, Funny)
Don't you mean a looseless hard copy?
HP is rebranding iTunes (Score:4, Informative)
hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
RIAA Was quoted.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:RIAA Was quoted.. (Score:2)
I think you have these figures wrong... the figures were likely quoted in the news. According to the RIAA, it was 400 computers, 8000 lbs of coffee beans, and a 240 year old Indian girl with 20 legs.
w00t (Score:5, Funny)
Re:w00t (Score:2, Funny)
Hot CDs (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hot CDs (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hot CDs (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hot CDs (Score:2)
Recycled material: makes you feel responsible!
Insulating layer: keeps you warm, but not too hot!
Burn Linux Distros Too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Burn Linux Distros Too (Score:5, Funny)
Re:what? (Score:2)
I think he means you'd get a custom bootable linux CD that would work in the kiosks at the coffee shop. This would be a great idea if the distro was tuned to be as simple as user-friendly as possible. They could also give you a CD-RW on which you could store email, settings, cookies, music, etc.
On top of that, HP could offer an extremely cheap and low maintenence (read: Windows-less) internet appliance on which the CD's could be used when you are at home.
Mix in some built-in branding and (unobtrusive, I
Coffee and music -- Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Coffee and music -- Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
In reality the casual-cup-time should nicely eliminate the percieved lack of instant gratification.
Re:Coffee and music -- Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Hear Music also has a few record stores in California. The store in Santa Monica re-opening on tuesday has been on the third street promenade for over 6 years.
So where is the synergy? How about picking up a latte and then listening to any CD in the store -- full length CD, not 30 second samples.
Re:Coffee and music -- Why? (Score:2)
I shop at Hear Music because the staff is friendly and knowledgable, and the music selection is excellent -- different then most of the stuff you hear on the radio.
Hear Music sells many, many compilations from a number of different genres. I always thought it would be a great idea for them to allow people to burn their own compilations.
Re:Coffee and music -- Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Coffee and music -- Why? (Score:2)
Re:Coffee and music -- Why? (Score:2)
- open your wireless-enabled latop
- Google a line of the lyrics to get the artist's and song name
- fire up iTunes (heck, LimeWire if you're brave)
the song is on your laptop faster than they can sprinkle cinnamon on your overpriced java.
I don't think it works that well with the mp3 crowd.
Re:Coffee and music -- Why? (Score:3)
open your wireless-enabled latop
and if you don't have one? (i dont)
Google a line of the lyrics to get the artist's and song name
You know, not all music (including most played at a place like starbucks) has lyrics.
And of course, you'd still have to pay starbucks' overpriced wireless charge to get on their network at all.
Re:Coffee and music -- Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't want to go to bar, go shopping, or go get a meal there are not that many places to go.
( oops....forgot the library and church ).
What is left is Starbucks or other coffe houses.
Its the closest thing America has to a neibhorhood pub where you can get out of the house and just hang without being a consumer.
Steve
Re:Coffee and music -- Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not new at all. Already people go to Borders to hang out, have coffee, check out some books and CDs... and leave with some bags of new stuff.
Some time ago, just as they learned that their business is media, bookstores learned that retention over time (browse, browse, browse) is the key to increasing their business. Coffee shops, poetry readings and social events are such forms of retention. Corporate bookstores are the new mini-malls.
A common complaint of the typical college file-sharer (precisely the age demographic that most often does the above in my experience), is the songs-I-want : CD-price as a factor limiting the amount of CDs they would buy. They spend some time browsing, listening to CD samples, and at the end they have to choose which one to buy because they like 3 songs from different CDs but each costs 20 bucks, and they can only afford one.
Given a choice to spend money per song plus media, they'll take it and be more satisfied customers. And satisfied customers are more likely to rationalize to themselves larger expenses, buying those 2 CDs they can barely afford becuase it's exactly what they want anyway. By lowering the price barrier you increase the rate of impulsive buys.
This is part of why iTunes is successful; and these are sales straight out of the "browse, sample, buy" market of Virgin, Borders et al. It only makes sense puts 2 and 2 together and embeds the new business model with the old retention scheme.
I'm only surprised it's HP and Starbucks we're talking about, and not Borders, or Barnes & Nobles, partnered with either.
Music distribution is not for everyone... (Score:5, Insightful)
What's next? I'm going to get a free song with a Happy Meal? I guess there are a lot of execs out there that think if you don't offer music in one way or another, then you must be doomed. I esitmate that in a few years, we will be back to several high quality music choices.
--
Real-time deal updates [dealsites.net]
Music getting cheap (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Music distribution is not for everyone... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with most execs is that they can't come up with anything original, so they follow in others' footsteps. What happened to innovation?
What's worse, it seems that the whole internet has become a venue to distribute music (and pr0n, of course). In my eyes, this has put this great tool (the internet) at a new low. It's like buying the latest and greatest graphics card just
Re:Music distribution is not for everyone... (Score:2)
I bought a drink at a movie theater that came with a little CD with some music on the lid. They don't fly very well, though.
Re:Music distribution is not for everyone... (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, there is a rumor floating around that McDonald's may give away 1 billion songs at some undetermined point in the future.
Not necessarily music... (Score:2)
Re:Music distribution is not for everyone... (Score:2)
Well... (Score:3, Informative)
Strategic Option Generator (Score:5, Insightful)
As an employee of a publically-traded rival corporation [Peet's Coffee & Tea] I'm not exactly unbiased here, but I'm wondering what others have to say about the strategy behind such a radical departure from the typical role of a coffee shop.
bingo (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Strategic Option Generator (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Strategic Option Generator (Score:3, Funny)
It's a lot like the gun and candy etc. that you see in the check out lines at grocery stores
Well, that's what you get for doing your grocery shopping at the WalMart near Charlton Heston's house ;-)
Re:Strategic Option Generator (Score:2)
Cyber cafe? (Score:2)
Starbucks was already adding cyber cafe equipment, which is as close to the original purpose as leaving out newspapers (people read the newspaper and order an extra cup or two of coffee while they finish). This gives that equipment a use in the evenings when people aren't normally sitting in a caf
Re:Strategic Option Generator (Score:2)
sweetaction, this is entirely false. Starbucks was actually RUN by an ex-employee of Peet's Coffee & Tea. Starbucks was founded by a close associate of Alfred Peet, the founder of Peet's. Peet's Coffee and Tea was privately founded by Alfred Peet and is now a publicly traded corporation.
In the future, please provide references to your claims. For mine, I point you to Peet's own website: www.peets.com.
If burning is okay, how about downloading? (Score:4, Insightful)
It'll work, because they aren't a record store (Score:4, Insightful)
Who loses in the end? The music stores, anyway.
Re:It'll work, because they aren't a record store (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know about your local starbucks, but my local starbucks sells stamped CDs, assuming you mean non-burn offical release CDs. I don't know of a Starbucks that doesn't have music during business hours, sometimes after, and offer the CD. Some even have listening stations as well.
Besides, I thought music stores were loosing out to walmart rather then burn on demand systems.
Good Idea (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm already doing it. (Score:2)
Maybe I'll low-ball them on the price for a music CD.
Easily satisfied. (Score:3, Funny)
Been there, done that...sort of (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Been there, done that...sort of (Score:3, Informative)
Actually... (Score:3, Informative)
.02
cLive;-)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Burnt Starbucks coffee (Score:3, Insightful)
But between the insane cost and the burnt flavour of their coffee, I never go to Starbucks and the ability to put together a CD isn't going to entice me.
$160 million in Music and Coffee? (Score:3, Funny)
Either that or the military will fly a Sea King helicopter over their headquarters (Canadians will find that last bit funny).
Take Carly for a ride in a SeaKing.. (Score:2)
Good idea for HP, bad choice of partner. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are three types of people in starbucks: Those freaky, overhyped, quad-shot espresso people, who are terminally late to work and just forgot to pick up their kids from soccer practice; the blue collar men in dirty clothes who are so relaxed you would think someone slipped prozac into their spam; and the college kids / young pros with their laptops who come to get some work done in the peace and quiet of a store full of caffeine withdrawal victims screaming for soy milk in their peppermint no-whip half-caf grande white mochas. None of the above seem like the type who would hang out to pay for music... too busy, occupied, or just poor. Admittedly, this might fly in the retail store locations (the Starbucks in Barnes and Noble, for example), as they draw a more relaxed, less goal-oriented crowd, but I can hardly see their host stores being happy about the competition.
Starbucks does this every now and then. They had that crazy arrangement with Kozmo before they went Kaput, whereby drop-off stations were strategically placed in every Starbucks in exchange for some significant quantity of realbucks. Kozmo might actually have made it if it wasn't for that tremendous monetary commitment.
Personally, I don't see this arrangement being significantly more successful than that one.
Oh well. They've got the money to try, I guess. Someday they'll find another use for their successful cafe chain. Besides, of course, being the seat of power for Mister Evil. Sorry, Doctor Evil.
*full disclosure- used to be a Barrista. I was young, I needed the money.
Re:Good idea for HP, bad choice of partner. (Score:2)
I just said that. I was a Barrista.
*Please don't use company hype to justify you're crappy job.
And I am not a crappy job.
One good aspect (Score:5, Insightful)
1. A song is playing in Starbucks.
2. You like what you hear.
3. You go to the "jukebox to go" (or whatever they will call it), click the "buy what's on now" button, and pay $1 for the song and $1 for the CD ($2.00 total).
I keep thinking about the scene in High Fidelity, where John Cusack says "I'm going to sell a copy of x album right now" and then puts on a record. Sure enough, someone comes up and asks what is playing and buys it. The impulse buy in an environment is powerful. I often hear things in record stores, etc. and would love to have an easy way to buy it.
Re:One good aspect (Score:3, Informative)
Walk to record store guy that's selecting the music. Call out that you wanna have the CD with the song he/she is playing. Buy CD. Which part is confusing you?
How long 'til lawsuits? (Score:2, Insightful)
Answer: Never.
Here's a clue about how to avoid lawsuits: don't break the law.
<bart
Starbucks to Begin Sinister PHASE TWO of Operation (Score:3, Funny)
Snippet from the article:
Those living near one of the closed Starbucks outlets have reported strange glowing mists, howling and/or cowering on the part of dogs that pass by, and electromagnetic effects that cause haunting, unearthly images to appear on TV and computer screens within a one-mile radius. Experts have few theories as to what may be causing the low-frequency rumblings, half-glimpsed flashes of light, and periodic electronic beeps emanating from the once-busy shops.
iPod (Score:5, Interesting)
Starbucks recapitulating Personics (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Asking the obvious question (Score:4, Insightful)
What exactly are they selling?
- a Raw Audio track in all ways identical to what you get when you purchase a mass-market factory-pressed CD?
- the WAV file equivalent?
- the {insert preferred lossless encoded format here} equivalent?
- a 320Kbps encoded MP3? (ie plays everywhere and not-quite-but-nearly-as-good-as-lossless)
- a 16kbps encoded MP3? (ie totally-crap-but-still-plays-anywhere)
- the {insert hellspawn DRM managed format here} equivalent?
Methinks people need to wake up and smell the HYPE.(ie buy ~16 of these and you have "an audio CD")
If this was a shameless attempt to score off the recent Digital Music wave, it didn't work. Yahoo Finance shows SBUX Stock [yahoo.com] didn't do all that well Friday (Reuters had this news [yahoo.com] Thu March 11 ~8pm)
John Doe lawsuits (Score:2)
CDs are sooooo 1990s! (Score:5, Funny)
This is a great idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Many people want custom mixed CDs, are willing to pay for them, but they are not willing to pay for a high speed connection or for a huge collection of second hand CDs in order to get the individual songs they want.
Steve
What huh? (Score:2)
This could really work. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've purchased indie bands online, but I really haven't been in a music "store" for a decade. I quickly found myself in a foreign place.
There were a number of albums for the artist I wanted, while the one I'd specifically decided to buy wasn't in stock.
I decided that maybe I'd buy something else, too, but just as quickly found that *gulp!* there's no way to sample the tunes before you buy!
So, you spend $12-$20 without being able to "kick the tires" and no way to sample the tunes first?
Just rediculous. I'm surrounded by thousands of albums from hundreds of artists, and have no idea what I might be interested in.
I eventually bought a mediocre "Alanis Morrissette unplugged" CD that I really don't appreciate all that much - she sounds bored, without her usual passion and fire.
Preview, then buy? I might very happily do it! Ever see Magna Tunes? [magnatunes.com]
Muzak's next annoucement (Score:3, Funny)
"Can't get enough of that cool version of 'One Note Samba' while riding your way to the 20th floor? Press the [Muzak-burn] button, swipe your credit card, and VOILA... your CD is ready by the time the doors open."
The digital revolution (Score:3, Funny)
very good coffee? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now you, too, can have that wonderful taste of charred coffee in your very own home!
Starbucks over-roasts to hide uneven quality (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Yes but... (Score:4, Funny)
Unfortunately, not likely (Score:5, Insightful)
Side issues for other stores (Score:3, Interesting)
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, t
Re:Why get music in the real world? (Score:4, Insightful)
Moreover, 12" Vinyl has made a huge comeback over the past few years because its "mixable" and "scratchable," on turntables, great for live performance purposes.
Re:Why get music in the real world? (Score:2)
Doh, in a test with a room full of music lovers listening in with their own (mostly sennheiser) headphones, NONE was able to distinguish a normal CD with 192 kbit compression. The test was done using several formats (minidisk format, mp3 format & ogg format). Only a few could distinguish between 128 kbit mp3 and 44khz CD, and only for a couple of music genres (m