Filed under: Consumer experience, Rants and raves, Starbucks (SBUX), Marketing and advertising

Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) pitches customers on the idea of personalized gift cards, but there are some restrictions. In its personalization policy, Starbucks tells its customers that “We accept most personalization requests, but we can’t honor every one. Some requests may contain trademarks that we don’t have the right to use. Others might contain material that we think about inappropriate (such as threatening remarks, derogatory terms, or overtly political commentary) or wouldn’t want to see on Starbucks-branded products.”

In a column (subscription required) in today’s Wall Street Journal, Cato Institute executive vice president David Boaz writes about a friend who had his gift card request rejected because he wanted the phrase laissez-faire — an ideology that gained prominence in the 18th century and advocated minimal government interference with commerce — printed on the card. Boaz writes that “at my suggestion, my friend went back to the Web site and asked that his card be issued with the phrase “People Not Profits.” Bingo! Starbucks had no problem with that phrase, and the card arrived in a few days.I wondered just what the company’s standards were. If “laissez-faire” is unacceptably political, how could the socialist slogan “people not profits” be acceptable?”

The explanation here’s pretty clear: as part of its effort brand itself as a neighborhood coffee shop, Starbucks, whose logo is international sign language for overpriced and overrated coffee, wants to avoid being seen as a bastion of free markets and capitalism. The problem is that that is exactly what Starbucks is. This is the moral equivalent of Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) banning its customers from putting “Low prices at all costs” on their personalized gift cards.

This gift card-gate personifies everything that I hate about Starbucks. It’s a multinational empire passing itself off as a neighborhood coffee shop. That’s nothing short of identity theft.

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Filed under: Coca-Cola (KO), PepsiCo (PEP), Marketing and advertising

Coca Cola (NYSE: KO) and PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) better look out. Red Bull GmbH, the Austrian company behind bestselling energy drink and household name Red Bull, wants to try its hand at selling cola. The new drink, shown at right, will launch in seven countries over the next several months, with the US launch slated for June, according [subscription required] to the Wall Street Journal.

According to BrandWeek, “Unlike Coca-Cola and Pepsi, Red Bull Cola will be 100% natural and command a premium price. Its formula will consist of kola nut and coca leaf.”

The all-natural formula could be a huge advantage for Red Bull,wcreating the perception of a more healthy beverage in the same way that vitaminwater became a huge hit among people looking to drink healthier, in spite of being pretty high in calories.

Will Red Bull have success? That’s hard to state without knowing what it tastes like, but with a strong brand and rapid growth, Red Bull could present the most serious challenge to the cola leadership of Coke and Pepsi in a long time — possibly ever.

With Coke and Pepsi both experiencing significant declines in sales last year, this could be the perfect time to kick them while they’re down.

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Filed under: Business, Internet, Features, Windows, Macintosh, Blogging, E-mail, Office, Productivity, Web services, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Shareware, Freeware, web 2.0

How many of the applications you use on a daily basis are web-based as opposed to locally installed native applications? For me, the answer is way more than I ever would have expected.

Had you asked me this question a few years ago, I would have vehemently denied that the future of development is on the internet. As much as I could see and comprehend the value of a ubiquitously available web-based application, there’s just no way to approach the level of power and integration (not to mention the ability to be always-available) that is possible with well conceived and developed desktop software.

Of course, back then I didn’t imagine that web applications could become as useful as Google Calendar or Remember the Milk. I also didn’t envision that light - yet still useful - versions of these apps would be available from my mobile phone nearly wherever I was.

In fact, and much to my surprise, this day most of my personal data today is tied up in on the web services: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Backpack, Remember the Milk, Facebook, Newsgator, and Evernote to name just a few.

Most of these are probably pretty familiar names, but one is a newcomer in the internet space: Evernote. Still in beta, the new version of Evernote contains a full-featured web version, but synchronizes seamlessly with desktop software on either Windows or Mac platforms. And it’s a breath of fresh air.

Continue reading Should software be native or web-based?

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