This one via The Starbucks Gossip Blog. The Austin American Statesman reports Starbucks has given up on their in-store CD burner kiosks.
In 2004, Starbucks announced with fanfare that Austin and Seattle would be test markets for its Hear Music media bars. Working with Hewlett-Packard Corp., Starbucks developed touch-screen computer kiosks that allow customers to download music from a bank of about 200,000 songs, burning them onto CDs at 99 cents a track.
Less than two years later, Starbucks has removed the equipment from most of the stores.
Sure it was a great idea a couple of years ago when they launched it and the idea of burning CDs of your favorite mix was something new and exciting. These days even my six year old can burn his own mixes right to his iPod Shuffle and be rocking out to Ralph’s World in no time.
The lesson? Today’s hot consumer technology is quickly becoming tomorrow’s meh.
