Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Free Wi-Fi is Just a Small Part of Starbucks' Plan: Free Access to Paid Content Coming Fall 2010 [ReadWriteWeb]

More on free digital stuff at Starbucks

The free access to paid content sites, however, is the big news here. According to Starbucks, this new service, called the "Starbucks Digital Network," will give users who surf the Internet from U.S. company owned stores access to "various paid sites and services such as wsj.com, exclusive content and previews, free downloads, local community news and activities, on their laptops, tablets or smart phones." Besides the Wall Street Journal, Starbucks' partners include Apple's iTunes, The New York Times, Patch, USA TODAY, Yahoo and ZAGAT.

While Starbucks did not release details about these partnerships, it is easy to image that in-store Wi-Fi users could, for example, get free access to specific songs on iTunes and be allowed to bypass the New York Times' upcoming paywall restrictions.

Free Wi-Fi is Just a Small Part of Starbucks' Plan: Free Access to Paid Content Coming Fall 2010

No comments: