Introducing... the Starbucks Digital Network!

Starbucks is one of my favorite places to grab a coffee, meet up with friends or study for my next big test. It is my go-to place for comfort, relaxation and stability because I can honestly say that I have never had a bad experience there. And now, that great experience has gotten even better thanks to the introduction of the Starbucks Digital Network.



As you saw in the video, Starbucks has partnered with Yahoo to bring you the newest digital revelation that truly involves you in the Starbucks environment and experience. SDN is simply a personalized Starbucks home screen that not only provides news and updates around the world, but also in your neighborhood. The SDN essentially replaces your community bulletin board or newsletter by providing you all of the information in a faster and more convenient way. The SDN offers a variety of information from the following six categories: News, Entertainment, Welness, Business and Careers, My Neighborhood and the customer-personalized Starbucks channel. Starbucks has partnered with big businesses in each category ranging from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to music and apps from Apple iTunes, exclusive 30-day free trial of the LinkedIn premium account and local reviews from Zagat.


According to Starbucks Vice President of Digital Venue's, “Tens of millions of customers are coming in to our stores and logging in to our Wi-Fi on a monthly basis anyways. They’re coming in because we provide this great experience — good music overhead, quality food and coffee and the opportunity to connect with your friends or the baristas … What we hope is that this is a nice complement to that experience.”


Below is an example of what the home screen would look like:

Also, Starbucks recognizes the high use of internet on mobile phones and has made the SDN capable for phone users. And the best part is the SDN is absolutely 100% free. The only catch is you have to be at a Starbucks location to access the SDN. Yes there are 30-day trials for some of the businesses, but this is a very smart marketing tool on their end. I believe companies like LinkedIn will see an increase in their "premium account" users due to the free trial on the SDN. Plus, since Starbucks is putting their first priority on the localization of everyone's SDN, this will increase the users of Foursquare and other check-in applications. 


Personally, I am very excited for my next study session at Starbucks because of this new application. Not only is Starbucks on the cutting edge of the digital world, but they are greatly enhancing their customers relationship with their brand. Introducing the SDN at this time and being the first company to create a new level of personal connection to the brand, is definitely in the right direction for what the future of our digital world holds.

It's time to put on that cap & gown...

Last week, I was logging onto my Facebook for probably the 8th time of the day, when this advertisement popped up on the right-hand side of my profile. I recognized the artwork from posters all over Mass Media advertising photo week for the Talisman. Realizing that it was my senior year and last yearbook photo to ever be taken, I clicked on the advertisement to sign up for my picture. The ad took me directly to ouryear.com where I followed 3 quick and easy steps to sign up for my senior photo. 


I find it fascinating how geo-targeted this Facebook ad is and that it popped up nearly every time I clicked onto a different page. Not only was this advertising scheme extremely user friendly, but very smart for the Talisman staff. It is an issue every year to get students to take their yearbook photo, but making it as easy to sign up as logging into your Facebook, should definitely boost the amount of students who will be photographed this year. I honestly would never have signed up for at time or even gotten my photo taken if this ad wouldn't have been on Facebook. I told all of my roommates about it and helped them sign up via Facebook as well. One of my roommates said she never would have paid attention to the ad because she hadn't seen the poster around campus. Of course they all signed up and were impressed with how simple it was!


That being said, if you haven't taken your photo yet, log onto Facebook quick, Friday is the last day!

Everyone needs an iPhone. Seriously.

I have always been an Apple lover. iPods and MacBooks have been apart of my life since middle school. However, I have not yet jumped on the iPhone bandwagon. Yes, I know they have been out for 4 years now, but when it comes to cell phones I am always hesitant about the "hit new phone." But until this Fall I haven't had a burning desire to have one... and hopefully Christmas will bring me my very own iPhone.

While on fall break, I took a two-day roadtrip up to Chicago with a friend of mine to visit family and enjoy the city. Without her iPhone, we would have been lost on the drive up, in the city, and making our way back home. Not only that, but we wouldn't have been able to find the closest Walgreens, cheapest parking structure and Portillo's Hot Dogs. 

Maps was our best friend, leading us everywhere we needed to go. We walked all over the city thanks to our handy map. Before I would have taken the subway or hailed a cab, but this trip, being able to see how far our destination was, we decided to walk it out. Not only did Maps help us walk throughout the city, but it was also our GPS system in and out of Chicago. Not only was this tool extremely useful, but any question we had was immediately answered by Google. We were meeting my cousins for dinner one night and were able to look up the menu, location and reviews before even arriving. Another application "Around Me" showed you by category the closest restaurants, bars, shopping, restrooms, etc.

Basically, this trip absolutely sold me that I need an iPhone. It's everything and anything you can think of in the palm of your hand. Every piece of social media is available to you at the touch the screen. It amazes me that technology has advanced this far and we are able to literally have the world at our fingertips. Congratulations Apple for having the upper hand, I can't wait to see what they create next!

Move aside YouTube...

Vevo is the new site on the rise. Vevo is known as the "Music Evolution Revolution!" According to Mashable.com, Vevo came out on top for music video watchers, with YouTube in second place. Vevo was only launched last December and has 1.4 billion views per month. I believe this is an astounding number of views considering this site hasn't even been out for a year! Yes, YouTube does link music videos to Vevo, but those hits are directly from the Vevo.com site.

The main reason Vevo has so much popularity, is because they only play the official music video. Unlike YouTube, which gives you options for what video you would like to watch, Vevo automatically plays the music video and then shows related video's and artists.  Also, they rank daily the top videos and top playlists. Something that distinguishes Vevo from YouTube is the amount of specialty users Vevo attracts; it is more of a niche site than YouTube. Plus these niche users are able to access the content they want without searching for hours through YouTube.

I think this is a really interesting site that will continue to gain popularity and users. Now that I know more about it, I will definitely become a Vevo user!