For San Francisco, Seattle and New York City area WiFi-equipped iTunes users, you now have another reason to visit the local Starbucks.
To complement your coffee, your scone, coffee cup purchases, newspapers and CDs from the Starbucks label, you can now search and download songs from the Apple iTunes store online, free.
No doubt this initiative, expected to rollout across the nation by the end of 2009, will keep the laptop-equipped, tech-saavy, caffeine-addicted shopper in the store for just a few more minutes, generating just a few more sales opportunities for the coffee chain.
Starbucks is an environmental experience that appeals to the urban sophisticate who are probably strong iTunes customers too. T-Mobile's HotSpot service does win big here too. It will expose their offer to a whole new class of potential subscriber that wants to do one more thing besides search & buy music such as check sports or news or do other things in the Starbucks store with their laptop. Who knows, maybe we'll see promotions like free songs if you log in to HotSpot today…
