Starbucks is teaming up with (RED) to help fight AIDS in Africa. This holiday season, at participating Starbucks locations, if you spend over $15, you get a complimentary “Love CD”. For every love CD handed out, Starbucks donates $1 to the global fund to help fight AIDS in Africa. They also are a donating 5 cents for every “love drawing” submittd on their website (up to the first 1 million entries).

Check it out here and get to drawing!!

Starbucks new instant brew coffee, Via, is pitting itself against…. itself. In a taste test challege, the coffee chain is letting consumers taste (or not taste) the difference between their freshly brewed and instant. Today is the last day to get in on the fun, so stop by your local Starbucks and ask for a cup of joe.

We think it tastes just as good as any cup of freshly brewed Starbucks coffee. And we bet you’ll agree. a participating Starbucks store October 2-5 to take the Starbucks VIA Taste Challenge. Let us know if you can taste the difference and receive a free tall brewed coffee for your time.

Starbucks VIA Ready Brew is available nationwide starting September 29.

Source: http://www.starbucks.com/via

Starbucks is launching a store-finding and menu-information application for the iPhone, and is testing a second app that will let customers use the phone as their Starbucks card.

The two apps are the coffee chain’s first for the iPhone and iPod touch. It has previously offered mobile services, such as the ability to send a text message to locate a nearby store, and has worked with Apple to make in-store songs available through iTunes.

The apps resulted from customer feedback it received via social-networking sites and My Starbucks Idea, the online community it launched last year, said Stephen Gillett, its chief information officer. “We think it’s really talking to our customers in new ways.”

Starbucks will be competing with several unofficial iPhone apps, such as iApp’s Find a Starbucks Coffee, Snow Storm’s Expresso Pro and ourLivez’s Sbux Card, and tech blogs have pitched concepts of what a Starbucks iPhone app might look like for a while now.

The first app, myStarbucks, lets customers locate stores and bookmark favorite locations. They can search by additional information, such as hours and amenities, to find, for example, a nearby one that’s open and has a drive-thru window. It also includes a menu and nutritional information for Starbucks’s drinks, food and coffee beans, and a “drink builder” that displays nutritional information based on the selections.

The second app lets users check their card balance and transfer more money to it. In 16 stores in Seattle and the Bay Area — due to the high usage rates of both Starbucks cards and Apple products in those regions, a Starbucks spokeswoman said — it also displays a scannable bar code on the cellphone screen, allowing it to be used to pay for purchases, like a Starbucks card, at those stores.

Source: Wall Street Journal click here to read more

Today, July 21, 2009, the coffee chain giant Starbucks is offering a free pastry with purchase of a coffee drink from opening until 10:30 a.m. local time—or until the pastry supply runs out. All you need to do is bring in the printed coupon, available for download from their brand site, Twitter page or Facebook page. If you don’t want to print, the Facebook page contains a URL for a mobile version of the coupon so you can simply show a barista your cellphone screen and qualify for the free goodie. 

Print and enjoy ! (Even though it is bagel Tuesday….)