Starbucks WiFi iTunes program goes online in larger markets

The Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) partnership with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) first announced almost two months ago to bring the iTunes Store into Starbucks locations is now up and running. A San Francisco area writer noted the program's opening in the city's 360 stores last Wednesday. The program offers coffee drinkers the ability browse through the iTunes Store on their WiFi enabled computers, iPhone, or the iPod touch and purchase music tracks.

The biggest feature is the ability to purchase tracks then currently playing in the Starbucks store, but the iTunes connection does not extend to other internet sites, or video and other content in the store. Consumers must still pay for WiFi access to other internet sites in the stores, due to an agreement between Starbucks and T-Mobile. Ken Lombard, the head of Starbucks Entertainment, told Ellen Lee, a San Francisco Chronicle contributor, "we'll never turn our store into a music store" and she notes, "through the Apple partnership customers will have access to any music they like." Unfortunately, if you do not live in the larger markets, you will be waiting until as late as the end of 2009 to see this feature fully operating, as it is extended to the 6,000 U.S. Starbucks locations.

I've commented on this program before, when Starbucks rolled out the iTunes "Song of the Day" that ended last Wednesday, coincidentally. I would argue that in many ways Starbucks is becoming a music store, even if they do not think they are. Maybe not a conventional one, or a large retail chain with a music section, but with the establishment of a record label, Hear Music, and the partnership with iTunes, Starbucks is taking all of the same steps that many music stores have taken in the past. After all, before Tower Records folded last year they had started selling digital tracks. Starbucks is certainly in no position to file for bankruptcy, but the partnership with iTunes makes for a better deal than if a "StarbucksTunes" store had opened.