John Cook of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer just reported some big news from Starbucks annual general meeting today. The coffee retailer announcing a slew of news including the acquisition the the company responsible for the Clover brewing system, a new customer rewards program, and a new social networking site.
It looks like Howard Schultz is serious about turning around the fortunes of the ailing coffee giant. The Clover brewing system is widely recognized as delivering the best cup of brewed coffee around and Schultz has committed to putting a Clover machine in every Starbucks location.
With regards to social networking, Starbucks hopes to extend the community created in-store online through the launch of a site called MyStarbucksIdea.com. The goal of this new site is to allow customers to share their ideas, engage in conversations and play a role in shaping Starbucks future.
This may not be such a bad idea considering there are currently 500+ Groups on Facebook with Starbucks in their name.
While I'm not exactly smitten with the concept here, there is one thing I find especially intriguing about this whole thing. What's that? It's the part of the story that everyone seems to be skipping.
This "social network" is a Salesforce.com application.
And it's got to be the most beautiful Salesforce.com application I've ever seen. I've worked with Salesforce for years, and I've never seen anything of this caliber.
Very cool.
