And Starbucks pulls in the rear…

The great thing about being young in 2010 is that you can do all of the trendy things that folks are doing.  One of my favorites is sitting in a coffee shop sipping a $5 drink, and working on my MacBook Pro (of course realizing that people with inferior machines are watching enviously). One of my favorite places to do this is would be Starbucks, if they offered free wi-fi. But they don’t. Which really sucks. So, I turn to Borders, Caribou Coffee, Biggby, and most other coffee places for my caffeine and wi-fi fix.

Right now, if you buy and register a Starbucks card, you can get 2 free hours of internet (provided by AT&T) a day. BUT, if you’re not an AT&T customer and don’t have a Starbucks card, then you’re out of luck. You, my friend, have to pay $3.99 for 2 consecutive hours wireless internet use.  Who has ever heard of wi-fi that you have to pay for? I mean, c’mon Starbucks!

So, now the mega coffee chain is finally jumping on the bandwagon and offering free use of wireless internet in their company-owned American stores. And, to try to make up for their shortcomings, they’ve introduced the Starbucks Digital Network – in partnership with Yahoo!.  I really don’t understand why they didn’t team up with Google, we all know that Google runs the internet but …

This is what Starbucks had to say about their new changes:

The Starbucks Digital Network will offer you free access to exclusive content, community news and local volunteer opportunities on your laptop, tablet or smart phone. And it will only be available in our stores

We’ve teamed up with Yahoo! and a growing list of premium content partners, including the Wall Street Journal, Apple and Zagat, to enrich your coffeehouse experience with interesting news and entertainment cultivated for you.

With luck, they’ll make the Starbucks more enticing by offering services to customers that should be free with their ridiculously overpriced coffee. Hopefully, Barnes and Noble will take the hint as well and waive the fee to join their rewards club.