Greetings from Caffeine Central, Bean and Nothingness: the 800 lb gorilla- Starbucks.
I don't live near one, I live in one; a mad, mad, Starbucks world. It's tomorrow,and tomorrow is my permanent address!
Just like Seinfeld is a show about nothing---Starbucks has nothing to do with coffee. Starbucks is just like Seinfeld Every year I find myself watching a little more of it.
SBUX---America's favorite drug dealer is serving up, what Europeans call "Dirty Water"They have persuaded tens of millions of people to spend $4 for what had been a $1 product." That's an amazing-getting less for more value proposition. Drinking OK coffee and standing in line to buy it. The cult of the amateur, the army of one, patronizing the YOUniverse. Now that's EGOomics.
Thank you Kid Starbucks--open-minded, we-centric, candid, devoted to progress, personally accountable, curious, and confident ---Kid Starbucks, Thank you for taking some of the quo out of the status, and the way things were before. The Model T way -" you could have it in any color, as long as it's black".
The CNN Effect hit me hard--- the constant 24/7 news cycle. I stopped watching push TV. I pull my media from the web. The medium is the message means ou have to look beyond the obvious---Starbucks is so obvious-It's the coffee -NOT
I am waking up and smelling --- The Starbucks Effect--Everwhere and Forever has its gravitational pull on me---exerting almost cosmic influence on my life!
First and foremost, it is the Wi-Fi hot spot, the air-conditioning of the Internet age; in the spirit of the 20th century movie theatre-- where cold “advertising air” was deliberately blasted out the open doors to help sell tickets, knowing on every corner there is a SBUX and a WI-Fi connection is one step closer to being "always on".
Next, comes the numbers of possible choices available to the customer at the average Starbucks--it is amazing. The most referenced number is around 21,000, made based upon popular choices! But I'm fighting back---I am one of those drip customers!
Finally, The Sex of Starbucks is pleasure- I like going there, and I don't buy their coffee. I drink it. I love sitting in one of their epiphany chairs to self-reflect, write Hotel @nyware , or give in to a mood swing here or there. Do I even know what "venti" is? Oh yea, It's 20 in Italian!
From Starbucks To More Bucks
My Drug Dealer Starbucks is now pushing movies and music. Over the next 30 days, SBX is offering a free download from iTunes every day. Free iTunes Songs!
The Mug Life...Hanging Out And Starbucking is like love: it's s a verb not a noun. You Do it. It's a grammer of scorn and wonder... because there is no way of telling apart the espresso-sipping artist and the cappuccino-gulping banker and that means the democratization of providing anybody with an opportunity to create their identity by providing practically unlimited choice.
Location Saturation: I'm Getting Wet!
There is a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks! It's a convenience experience. The AMEX card- Don't leave home without it, but when there's a Starbucks everywhere---Don't leave home--because there's a "Home Sweet Starbucks" just around the corner.
This ain't no third place. This is my first place. I live at Starbucks. I'm a free agent and this is my hub. Culture is not always popular, but Starbucks is.
Could I please have a cup of SHUT THE F*&$ UP!
I've been to three today. I didn't have three cups of coffee. I went to three different ones; and on the island of Oahu, that's not like NYC. Even here in "paradise"..Pearl Harbor, Ala Moana, Waikiki.
Make Coffee Not War
I can see it now. We consume about as much coffee as oil. It's creative destruction. It's global capitalism and yankee doodle dandy imperialism. Shatter!
I am applying for citizenship. I
am a patriot, just like those alpha geeks, Steve Jobs and passionate MAC (culture) users are.... I would go to war for Starbucks and Google.Did you know? In 1511 coffee, AKA The Devil's Cup, was banned in Mecca as being too similar to alcohol. The ban was overturned 14 years later. I couldn't help myself. I saw The Kingdom this weekend.
Caffeine is not (really) a drug, it's a vitamin. The chain is off the chain--- Starbucks has become the new McDonald's (44 million customers a week), and "The Google" has become a 24-hour global exercise in collective intelligence gathering. When I say I live at Starbucks, I mean I live in the environment of it. It the U word-- Ok I'll say it----ubiquitious, like Google.
Yet it's not hard to deal with everywhere all at once.
Too Little Too Latte?
Pimp My Google- It's their world We just live in it and, serve in it.
My drug dealer and my pimp, the one two punch that Makes My Day, the in to my sane. You complete me.
I really enjoy being inside a Starbucks; drinking from that paper coffee cup, sitting it in my car's cup holder to remind me of where I was, that shows "I voted" for Starbucks again. It's not about the coffee; it's about the lifestyle. Yea , I heard 7/11 and (DuDO's) Dunkin Donuts Coffee is cheaper, but it's not about the price---"Why pay less?" is my attitude. I don't buy coffee. I drink it. I love sitting in one of their epiphany chairs to self-reflect, write Hotel @nyware , or give in to a mood swing here or there.
Starbucks is a lot like Google. Starbucks is a network. And networks exist to bring people together... and to sell them stuff. No concept is too big and there can never be too many "hooks" into an (end) users life.
There is zero switiching cost involved in me "using" (Seattle's Best)Yahoo or (Pete's) Vivisimo or (Coffee Bean)MSN, but I don't care.Google has StartingPoint Power.It bestows alpha geek status on me, and, more than that, I believed in google before it believed in me. There was no start page on the internet, and I made Google mine.
Now, it is the industry standard, the default start page for everyone- It turns out that owning the starting point on the Internet is really, really valuable; and starting ones day out at Starbucks is too.
Google is my magnifying glass. Something good on Google looks great to me. Just like Starbucks, it's about the lifestyle , the value is on the search, not the content.
The Dogs of Kitsch went on a world tour ---to satisfy mass culture, by spinning and packaging the shared hallucination of everlasting uncertainty, fueled by the disease of "more". Hello and Buy Buy to Val(shorthand for Valley Girl) like totally: How do you say---Shop till you drop, in Chinese? (More on that below). In my other writings, The Teaches Of Beaches- I have an edict--ALWAYS MAKE NEW MISTAKES. Chairman Howard stole my playbook--with the Forbidden City foray and their general lack of interest in the beverage, I mean culture-because isn't that what SB was selling? He sinned bravely.
Real China replaces Starbucks
Go East Young Man! It was the mantra of simplicity Zero sum minus some.The further East the Dogs of Kitsch go, the further West they get. People are the only thing that make a difference. It's not about high tech machines or your nice buildings and logos anymore. Apparently, the Chinese got sick of Corporate America's Death By PowerPoint Venture third round funding dog and pony shows---"all we have to do is get 1% of the people in China to buy our product." Dim Sum and Then Sum...
Let's read the tea leaves: You can't teach an old dogma new tricks. Don’t mistake motion for progress.If you feel athletic, do you go to a sports bar? So, if you want to love things that can't love you back, go to a Starbucks It's the “democratisation” of boredom. Get your workout on, on the dehumanizing treadmill of materialism and consumption....
Starbucks is like, so prehistoric, and headed for extinction. Chinese like TEA not COFFEE--- Yet you wouldn't know it. The old wine is in a new bottle. The art of telling stories even when there is no story to tell.
The karaoke bar is singing the praises of Don't Worry Be Happy in Seattle. A cheap
imitation of the once glory days of the first SB.
technorati tags:Google, Starbucks, Trends2007, EdReif
China Starbucks China
The Sex of Starbucks
Free iTunes Songs At Starbucks iTunesBlogged with Flock
ed reif
