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Jonathan's Card revealed as viral marketing campaign

303 points by AlfaWolph 15y ago

AlfaWolph 15y ago
..which I don't think takes anything away from it. It was still clever in implementation, concept, and now we can just add viral campaign to the list. Also, I think it's worth pointing out that the people at Metafilter were on it from the start. I don't know if that says anything about liberal arts and social science types being more cynical and skeptical or if the science and technical crowd types here are just easily entranced by the technical implementation of something and don't see the forest for the trees. It's probably both.
- gamble 15y ago
  Something about this story seemed to hit a nerve on HN. It didn't get nearly the same traction on Reddit or Metafilter.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- smhinsey 15y ago
  Metafilter has a long and storied history of uncovering these sorts of things, so it's not a total surprise to me that they were on this pretty quickly, although I admit I skipped that post.
dadads 15y ago
Wow, everyone here fell for it, me included. Although I have to admit, this is the first time I've seen a viral campaign involving the creation of an API.
- Pointsly 15y ago
  "fell for it" - I see what you are saying but I think you are giving 'them' 2 much credit.
  - dadads 15y ago
    717 karma on the original thread, and nobody suspected a thing! Now that I know this is Starbucks-funded, I suddenly feel the urge to buy Frappucinos using the card and make a giant pyramid.
    - masterzora 15y ago
      Now that I know this is Starbucks-funded Do you?
    - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
      Surely it's un-funded. Then they'd make money because you go to the till having ordered 30 coffees and "oh look" no money on that card, cough up $120 (or whatever).
mdwrigh2 15y ago
"Since you don’t care, you might as well click on the paid advertisement below so Google will send me $.50." I hope the author knows, this is a clear violation of ToS for AdSense and will likely jeopardize his account status. Edit: Sent the author an e-mail, hopefully he fixes it before it becomes an issue.
- corin_ 15y ago
  Don't worry, it's not a violation because he was just joking. (Yes, I am indeed being sarcastic.)
ja2ke 15y ago
It's totally hindsight driven, but the fact that he started every HN comment with the same "Jonathan here" type canned greeting should have probably raised an eyebrow. (amending this: after reading up a bit I don't agree with my own original post. It's a very odd thing to do -- I don't ever see anyone on HN post like that -- but he's not a fictional person or anything like that.)
- zem 15y ago
  i just read that as mildly n00bish behaviour - he came to hacker news simply because the story was posted here and he wanted to make sure his posts were known to be from him.
  - brianleb 15y ago
    FWIW his account is over a year old (though not very active). http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jonathanstark http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jonathanstark
    - billiamram 15y ago
      It looks like the same thing that happened this time. Someone posted an article of his to HN, then he created an account here to comment.
Urgo 15y ago
Created by Starbucks for marketing or not it still is a cool idea. I haven't actually made it into a Starbucks yet myself but I have the image on my phone ready to try it out if I am near one. It makes sense though if Starbucks is running it though since it never stays empty for long and never gets too much of a positive balance. They feed it just enough to keep people interested but make it empty enough that people still have to pay half of the time because its empty.
- heelhook 15y ago
  I agree regardless of being initiated by starbucks or not it's a cool idea, but this blog post is likely to kill the card, very unlikely that people will put money in.
barefoot 15y ago
Unless I'm missing something, I don't think it's been "revealed as a viral marketing campaign". So, Jonathan's company has worked with Starbucks in the past - am I missing something? Is that the extent of what we're working with here? If so, you might as well conclusively claim that I'm a Starbucks employee paid in part to sweep all of this under the rug.
Shenglong 15y ago
How stupid do you have to be to send comments from Starbucks HQ... Wow. For such a clever plot, this is a really sad ending. Reminds me of the Mona Lisa story a few days ago.
- alanfalcon 15y ago
  Read the article again and click the link. There was one Starbucks employee at Starbucks HQ who made one comment about a totally different story (the Starbucks pay-it-forward chains). When I worked at Blizzard, I'd occasionally post pro-Blizzard comments on random blogs; sometimes I'd do it while at work on break. So what? They were still my own honest opinions and not some campaign by Activision to defend Blizzard's honor or something.
  - Shenglong 15y ago
    Oh, I didn't click the link - I just assumed he was being correct when he said "employees". Your situation is a little different, if this is a starbucks advertising campaign.
  - yuhong 15y ago
    Yea, personally I think disclosure is still important, but an employee that happen to like randomly astroturf is one thing, a entire campaign of astroturfing is another.
collypops 15y ago
Now I feel pretty foolish for spending a few hours of my time developing a mobile app to use his API. http://jonathanstark.com/card/#api http://jonathanstark.com/card/#api
- mdwrigh2 15y ago
  I wouldn't feel foolish at all. Regardless of whether it's a viral marketing campaign, it was a neat idea that seems to have caught some steam. Furthermore, you hopefully gained something from those few hours of work, whether it's knowledge, satisfaction, or just a little more experience.
  - collypops 15y ago
    This was just my initial reaction. I've now completely reversed my thinking on it, and not because of Jonathan's response. I believe that anyone who puts enough time into a project like this (sponsored or otherwise) deserves a great deal of credit and respect regardless of their intent or the outcome. I would like to think that I'd receive the same amount of admiration, and I don't wish to taint his achievements in any way. We all love building cool and interesting shit, and it's more fun when people open up APIs and datasets and services for us to tap into. I did learn something in my few hours of hacking, so I thank Jonathan for the inspiration. I don't feel foolish in the slightest - only empowered to unleash one or two of my own experiments into the public.
robryan 15y ago
I think it changes from cool project for people with a bit of extra cash to give others coffees to just another piece of viral marketing. Especially since it was stated he was within no way affiliated with Starbucks, even if this does have nothing to do with them he should still mention this affiliation.
rodh257 15y ago
Saying he wasn't affiliated with Starbucks was dishonest (if indeed he was working for them, which I don't think this article really proves), but really does it matter that much? We were all interested in the experiment, can't we applaud some good marketing?
clemesha 15y ago
Does this mean the below is a fabricated statement? Response from Starbucks: "We think Jonathan's project is really interesting and are flattered he chose Starbucks for his social experiment" - http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100669712274436096 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10066971227443609...
- asifjamil 15y ago
  might be, but keep in mind that Starbucks' PR may genuinely not have been "in the loop" about this.
  - clemesha 15y ago
    Understood, but the owner of that Twitter account is not Starbucks' PR, correct? Either way, I'd rather 'assume good faith' as mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Currently I'm just curious, as I've been following the card story since before it got picked up by the more mainstream media.
- lusr 15y ago
  I don't drink coffee, nevermind go to Starbucks. Can somebody explain whether it's normal for Starbucks to allow people to walk in and make purchases with a scanned copy of a card rather than the physical card?! This to me is the most surprising and questionable aspect of this campaign being legitimate, but since nobody else is surprised I'm guessing it's normal? It seems like a total violation of the physical security embodied by requiring the purchaser to physically possess the card. Furthermore, depending on the transaction processing model they use, it could subject them to be fraud.
  - rflrob 15y ago
    I don't drink there often enough to be sure, but I suspect they have an app that displays the card's barcode. At that point, the difference between a live app and a screenshot of the app (which is what was on "Jonathans card") is pretty slim.
  - 15y ago
sahillavingia 15y ago
I think there's a pretty big difference between a guy trying out something cool and an elaborate viral marketing campaign constructed by an agency. I think this was the former, honestly. Maybe I'm just not jaded enough yet.
alanfalcon 15y ago
I'm not so sure that I trust "coffeestrategies.com" (to me, a random stranger on the internet with an apparent anti-Starbucks agenda) more than I trust "Jonathan Stark" (to me, a random stranger on the internet with an apparent pro-Starbucks agenda)... I'll say this: if it's truly a corporate sponsored viral marketing campaign, it's a very good one. I'm not convinced by this random blog post though that this isn't just someone genuinely doing what he says he's doing. http://jonathanstark.com/blog/2011/07/14/broadcasting-mobile-currency/#more-1486 http://jonathanstark.com/blog/2011/07/14/broadcasting-mobile...
- Apple-Guy 15y ago
  The cached client* page is still visible when I checked it. Starbucks is there. Somehow they removed it after the story came out. Let's see, it must be coffeestrategies' fault. Edit*: about -> client
kellishaver 15y ago
I really don't think this is the case at all. I've known Mr. Stark for some time now and he is an honest man of integrity - a good, decent guy. It's an experiment, exactly as he says it is. I discussed it with him the very first day he started the project. I'll choose to believe my friend on this one.
- ajays 15y ago
  If that is the case, then why did the company delete its graphic of the clients? http://mobiquityinc.com/clients/ http://mobiquityinc.com/clients/ Apparently, Starbucks is a client of theirs, and Stark is a VP: Mobiquity Vice President of Application Architecture.
  - kellishaver 15y ago
    I can't give you a reason other than speculation. The author of the blog post states that he had to go to Google cache to find the page in the first place, so there's no telling how long ago it was removed from Mobiquity's site. It makes no sense for them to remove the entire page when they could simply replace the Starbucks logo with that of another clients. Couple that with the fact that we have no idea when the page was changed and it sounds more like removing the client page was part of a decision regarding the overall content of their site and not an attempt to hide anything. A past affiliation between Starbucks and Mobiquity has no bearing at all on the current situation if it is not ongoing, and still doesn't imply any personal affiliation with Mr. Stark.
    - AlfaWolph 15y ago
      Someone within the last 24 hours went in and deleted Google cache though..
      - kellishaver 15y ago
        You don't have to be the owner of the page to request it be removed from Google cache. Who knows, the author could have done it to lend the theory more credibility and try to generate more scandal and thus more blog traffic. See? Un-founded accusations can work both ways.
kapilkale 15y ago
Whoever ends up being responsible for this-- kudos to them; it has been an entertaining experiment. If it was Sbux, it does make me wonder how many of these viral campaigns I've missed because they've been better guised.
xer0x 15y ago
This is awesome?! A viral marketing campaign directed at us! Wow. Response from HN could be: "...we are flattered that he chose HN for his social experiment"
- drivingmenuts 15y ago
  Or we could just go the "Machiavellian manipulation of HN readers by lying like a rug." Meh, either way. I don't do SBUX. I can make my own caffeination much cheaper.
chaostheory 15y ago
Fake or not, I really liked it. It was different and most importantly it made me feel good. If this is advertising I don't mind. It's a lot better than normal commercials I tend to ignore. I just wish they didn't pretend that they had nothing to do with it.
patio11 15y ago
I like the Wikipedia suggestion most of the time: assume good faith. He works with Starbucks at his day job. He decided to do a hack using an API he was exposed to there. This is not exactly nefarious, even to the severely-damaged-evil-meter version of nefarious which includes "intentionally and with forethought committing the sin of marketing." I have often used work technologies/clients at play and play technologies at work.
- kellishaver 15y ago
  Just to clarify, he's not using a Starbucks API. He's scraping the data from the user page. The API the card uses (for Twitter, for others to check the balance, etc.) is one he created for the project. A company he works for, in a completely unrelated capacity (application architecture != marketing) has in the past, at least, worked for or with Starbucks. Whether that's ongoing or not is between Starbucks and Mobiquity, but even if they are it's no indication of a professional or personal relationship between Starbucks and Mr. Stark. Jonathan's a friend of mine, so I'll take him at his word on this one.
  - yuhong 15y ago
    So the company happens to be unaffiliated with Starbucks now, but is showcased because it was a past client?
    - kellishaver 15y ago
      Sorry, my response was worded a bit poorly - I'll edit it. I have no idea if they still have a relationship with Starbucks or not.
  - sesqu 15y ago
    I'd just like to point out that the application he architechts is for marketing, so it's not exactly unrelated. That said, I don't much mind either way.
- gamble 15y ago
  There's still the question of why Mobiquity pulled their client list from the website. That's either an eyebrow-raising coincidence, or they're not cool with casual visitors knowing there's a business relationship.
carsonm 15y ago
Nah. I don't know Jonathan, but I've followed him on Twitter for quite a while after reading his O'Reilly published book on iPhone web app dev. (I think he's also the guy who took over maintenance of jQTouch.) Anyway, watching the whole thing evolve on his Twitter stream, it sure seems sincere. "Suspected to be a viral marketing campaign" might be a more appropriate headline here. Conspiracy theories are fun to think about, but too many things don't add up for this one. Thin evidence of it, a potentially anti-Starbucks agenda by coffeestrategies, the fact that Jonathan is a real live person with tons of professional credibility, and the fact that in order for it to be true, Jonathan would have had to pro-actively lie to all those of us who follow and trust him. That's strikes me as exceedingly unlikely.
geraldalewis 15y ago
1) I read the 'The company later had its employees comment on my blog with fictitious postings' out of context. It's not referring to `Jonathan's Card` but to the `Pay it Forward` campaign. Just pointing that out since it seems like others were not clear on that detail either. 2) Calling those `Pay it Forward` posts "fictitious" isn't merited. I would not be surprised to see an employee of any company posting a defense of the company they work for. 3) Anyone on HN who read "but unfortunately failed to anticipate that I can see the originating IP address of incoming comments" and didn't say to themselves "how does OP know they were trying to obfuscate their identity?" should be embarrassed. It's always a good idea to read posts critically, and it's always a good idea to accept the least cynical understanding of a situation until compelling evidence is provided to the contrary. I'll consider this submission as bait until something substantial is posted.
- sesqu 15y ago
  3) When an employee of a company publicly defends that company without disclosing their financial interest, I find it difficult to believe it just didn't cross their mind.
- benatkin 15y ago
  On top of that, there's encouraging clicks on Google ads regardless of interest (some call it click fraud). http://www.coffeestrategies.com/2011/08/08/starbucks-and-the-starkbucks-jonathan-card-viral-marketing-campaign#comment-10858 http://www.coffeestrategies.com/2011/08/08/starbucks-and-the...
citricsquid 15y ago
The only "bad" thing in my eyes is the cover up, if it is indeed being covered up. However until it's proven otherwise I'm going to assume this is good old finding-shit-where-there-isn't-shit which the internet is oh so good at! Even if the guy does work Starbucks (directly or indirectly) it's a clever idea, I enjoyed looking at it (and wish I could have taken part) and this won't change if it was some "viral marketing".
metafour 15y ago
Not sure how credible this is but the article does have a comment from someone saying that the twitter feed said the card had money when in fact it did not. They allude that this is part of the marketing ploy. Did anyone else experience this? My guess would be that it's just not updated in real time and they just happened to go at the wrong time. If we're giving the benefit of the doubt...
- kellishaver 15y ago
  You are correct that the Twitter feed isn't quite real-time. It only updates once a minute and the card was getting a lot of activity.
- geraldalewis 15y ago
  I appreciate that you asked in earnest, but the original comment conjures images of "trip-and-fall grifts" and "playing the long con". I usually look at big things like this in terms of where the money's going. But in the context of 'get unwitting customers to show up for free coffee when there's no money on a viral marketing gift card so that they'll spend money anyway', I'd ask 'where's the credit going' -- and no one at Starbucks corporate will claim creating a sleazy confidence game for some career leverage. And I'd also ask Occam for a razor.
- jyap 15y ago
  I put in $11 on Sunday at a very slow time. I saw the $11 top up shortly after in real time on the @jonathanscard Twitter feed. It was the only tweet for about 10 minutes when my $11 was mostly used up. My proof! http://twitpic.com/62shre http://twitpic.com/62shre Then someone contacted me via Twitter to say that they used my credits: https://twitter.com/#!/PinoyxJay/status/100455783979954176 https://twitter.com/#!/PinoyxJay/status/100455783979954176 Believe what you want.
benatkin 15y ago
I am disappointed after reading the article. Based on the title I expected to see some evidence. A business relationship that may not even be current and scrubbing the site doesn't count.
athst 15y ago
marketing campaign or not, I think it's really clever. If all marketing campaigns were even half as interesting, we'd all be a lot better off.
FreshCode 15y ago
If it's true, this is so genius.
hv23 15y ago
Disappointed with the misleading title of the post-- "Jonathan's Card revealed as viral marketing campaign". Browsing the comments, it's clear that a lot of people are jumping to conclusions without reading the full blog post (as is the wont of many on the web), which suggests /some/ link between Starbucks and this campaign-- but is circumstantial at best. It's anything but the smoking gun that the title would have you believe. What really happened is another story (I'm inclined to "assume good faith" in this instance), but I'm tired of seeing disingenuous titles of articles around the web that are used to blatantly misinform.
jonathanstark 15y ago
Big thanks to all of the folks who have supported sanity on this thread. My thoughts here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/jonathans-card/the-real-deal/174391689299156 https://www.facebook.com/notes/jonathans-card/the-real-deal/... Peace, j
- Udo 15y ago
  I think the project is a great idea, and it would still have been a great idea even if Starbucks was involved. Thanks for doing it!
- Apple-Guy 15y ago
  Why did mobiquity erase this page, which lists Starbucks as a client? http://mobiquityinc.com/clients/ http://mobiquityinc.com/clients/
- paulnelligan 15y ago
  Hi Jonathan, I'm not up for the witchhunt, as far as I'm concerned people have done far worse than what's been suggested here ... However, don't you think this could have been avoided by not saying 'I am not in any way affiliated with Starbucks' ? - it's a bit misleading, and I think people are right to be suspicious of your motives as a result, dontcha think ?
- AlfaWolph 15y ago
  Forgive me if this rubbed you the wrong way. I could've worded the title better. FWIW, no one (at least not me) is questioning the good intentions behind this even if it was planned. I just thought it was a cool idea, viral campaign or not.
- danso 15y ago
  Quite tellingly, you make no denial of the main accusations. The question is not whether this was your idea, but whether you were telling the truth when you said that your website was 100% not affiliated.with Starbucks.
  - hullo 15y ago
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LiveTheDream 15y ago
I didn't know it was possible to manually clear Google's cache of a web page. Turns out, it is: https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1091779&hl=en https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answ...
saalweachter 15y ago
I'm generally willing to give someone a pass for repeatedly emphasizing that their statements/projects/opinions are not in any way affiliated with their employer. I don't often make statements tangentially related to my work, but when I do I try to be as clear as possible that I am just a dude and not a spokesman, and beg people not to blow my statements out of proportion and get me fired. On the other hand, this man appears to be a marketer, so I assume that he has plenty of opportunities to try out his marketing ideas at work, and doesn't do them as a side project. I think the biggest question I have isn't "did he do this on his own time, or during his 9-to-5?", but "were 'real' people putting money on the card, or did the Starbucks marketing department just refill it when necessary?" As long as it was real people putting the money in and taking the money out, it's still an interesting social experiment, even if it was crafted as a marketing campaign.
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MaysonL 15y ago
Whether or not it was meant as a viral marketing campaign for Starbucks, that's what it's turned out to be. The road to hell, and all that...

303 points by AlfaWolph 15y ago

..which I don't think takes anything away from it. It was still clever in implementation, concept, and now we can just add viral campaign to the list. Also, I think it's worth pointing out that the people at Metafilter were on it from the start. I don't know if that says anything about liberal arts and social science types being more cynical and skeptical or if the science and technical crowd types here are just easily entranced by the technical implementation of something and don't see the forest for the trees. It's probably both.

gamble 15y ago
Something about this story seemed to hit a nerve on HN. It didn't get nearly the same traction on Reddit or Metafilter.
deleted 15y ago
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smhinsey 15y ago
Metafilter has a long and storied history of uncovering these sorts of things, so it's not a total surprise to me that they were on this pretty quickly, although I admit I skipped that post.

dadads 15y ago

Wow, everyone here fell for it, me included. Although I have to admit, this is the first time I've seen a viral campaign involving the creation of an API.

Pointsly 15y ago
"fell for it" - I see what you are saying but I think you are giving 'them' 2 much credit.
- dadads 15y ago
  717 karma on the original thread, and nobody suspected a thing! Now that I know this is Starbucks-funded, I suddenly feel the urge to buy Frappucinos using the card and make a giant pyramid.
  - masterzora 15y ago
    Now that I know this is Starbucks-funded Do you?
  - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
    Surely it's un-funded. Then they'd make money because you go to the till having ordered 30 coffees and "oh look" no money on that card, cough up $120 (or whatever).

mdwrigh2 15y ago

"Since you don’t care, you might as well click on the paid advertisement below so Google will send me $.50." I hope the author knows, this is a clear violation of ToS for AdSense and will likely jeopardize his account status. Edit: Sent the author an e-mail, hopefully he fixes it before it becomes an issue.

corin_ 15y ago
Don't worry, it's not a violation because he was just joking. (Yes, I am indeed being sarcastic.)

ja2ke 15y ago

It's totally hindsight driven, but the fact that he started every HN comment with the same "Jonathan here" type canned greeting should have probably raised an eyebrow. (amending this: after reading up a bit I don't agree with my own original post. It's a very odd thing to do -- I don't ever see anyone on HN post like that -- but he's not a fictional person or anything like that.)

zem 15y ago
i just read that as mildly n00bish behaviour - he came to hacker news simply because the story was posted here and he wanted to make sure his posts were known to be from him.
- brianleb 15y ago
  FWIW his account is over a year old (though not very active). http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jonathanstark http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jonathanstark
  - billiamram 15y ago
    It looks like the same thing that happened this time. Someone posted an article of his to HN, then he created an account here to comment.

Urgo 15y ago

Created by Starbucks for marketing or not it still is a cool idea. I haven't actually made it into a Starbucks yet myself but I have the image on my phone ready to try it out if I am near one. It makes sense though if Starbucks is running it though since it never stays empty for long and never gets too much of a positive balance. They feed it just enough to keep people interested but make it empty enough that people still have to pay half of the time because its empty.

heelhook 15y ago
I agree regardless of being initiated by starbucks or not it's a cool idea, but this blog post is likely to kill the card, very unlikely that people will put money in.

barefoot 15y ago

Unless I'm missing something, I don't think it's been "revealed as a viral marketing campaign". So, Jonathan's company has worked with Starbucks in the past - am I missing something? Is that the extent of what we're working with here? If so, you might as well conclusively claim that I'm a Starbucks employee paid in part to sweep all of this under the rug.

Shenglong 15y ago

How stupid do you have to be to send comments from Starbucks HQ... Wow. For such a clever plot, this is a really sad ending. Reminds me of the Mona Lisa story a few days ago.

alanfalcon 15y ago
Read the article again and click the link. There was one Starbucks employee at Starbucks HQ who made one comment about a totally different story (the Starbucks pay-it-forward chains). When I worked at Blizzard, I'd occasionally post pro-Blizzard comments on random blogs; sometimes I'd do it while at work on break. So what? They were still my own honest opinions and not some campaign by Activision to defend Blizzard's honor or something.
- Shenglong 15y ago
  Oh, I didn't click the link - I just assumed he was being correct when he said "employees". Your situation is a little different, if this is a starbucks advertising campaign.
- yuhong 15y ago
  Yea, personally I think disclosure is still important, but an employee that happen to like randomly astroturf is one thing, a entire campaign of astroturfing is another.

collypops 15y ago

Now I feel pretty foolish for spending a few hours of my time developing a mobile app to use his API. http://jonathanstark.com/card/#api http://jonathanstark.com/card/#api

mdwrigh2 15y ago
I wouldn't feel foolish at all. Regardless of whether it's a viral marketing campaign, it was a neat idea that seems to have caught some steam. Furthermore, you hopefully gained something from those few hours of work, whether it's knowledge, satisfaction, or just a little more experience.
- collypops 15y ago
  This was just my initial reaction. I've now completely reversed my thinking on it, and not because of Jonathan's response. I believe that anyone who puts enough time into a project like this (sponsored or otherwise) deserves a great deal of credit and respect regardless of their intent or the outcome. I would like to think that I'd receive the same amount of admiration, and I don't wish to taint his achievements in any way. We all love building cool and interesting shit, and it's more fun when people open up APIs and datasets and services for us to tap into. I did learn something in my few hours of hacking, so I thank Jonathan for the inspiration. I don't feel foolish in the slightest - only empowered to unleash one or two of my own experiments into the public.

robryan 15y ago

I think it changes from cool project for people with a bit of extra cash to give others coffees to just another piece of viral marketing. Especially since it was stated he was within no way affiliated with Starbucks, even if this does have nothing to do with them he should still mention this affiliation.

rodh257 15y ago

Saying he wasn't affiliated with Starbucks was dishonest (if indeed he was working for them, which I don't think this article really proves), but really does it matter that much? We were all interested in the experiment, can't we applaud some good marketing?

clemesha 15y ago

Does this mean the below is a fabricated statement? Response from Starbucks: "We think Jonathan's project is really interesting and are flattered he chose Starbucks for his social experiment" - http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100669712274436096 http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10066971227443609...

asifjamil 15y ago
might be, but keep in mind that Starbucks' PR may genuinely not have been "in the loop" about this.
- clemesha 15y ago
  Understood, but the owner of that Twitter account is not Starbucks' PR, correct? Either way, I'd rather 'assume good faith' as mentioned elsewhere in this thread. Currently I'm just curious, as I've been following the card story since before it got picked up by the more mainstream media.
lusr 15y ago
I don't drink coffee, nevermind go to Starbucks. Can somebody explain whether it's normal for Starbucks to allow people to walk in and make purchases with a scanned copy of a card rather than the physical card?! This to me is the most surprising and questionable aspect of this campaign being legitimate, but since nobody else is surprised I'm guessing it's normal? It seems like a total violation of the physical security embodied by requiring the purchaser to physically possess the card. Furthermore, depending on the transaction processing model they use, it could subject them to be fraud.
- rflrob 15y ago
  I don't drink there often enough to be sure, but I suspect they have an app that displays the card's barcode. At that point, the difference between a live app and a screenshot of the app (which is what was on "Jonathans card") is pretty slim.
- 15y ago

sahillavingia 15y ago

I think there's a pretty big difference between a guy trying out something cool and an elaborate viral marketing campaign constructed by an agency. I think this was the former, honestly. Maybe I'm just not jaded enough yet.

alanfalcon 15y ago

I'm not so sure that I trust "coffeestrategies.com" (to me, a random stranger on the internet with an apparent anti-Starbucks agenda) more than I trust "Jonathan Stark" (to me, a random stranger on the internet with an apparent pro-Starbucks agenda)... I'll say this: if it's truly a corporate sponsored viral marketing campaign, it's a very good one. I'm not convinced by this random blog post though that this isn't just someone genuinely doing what he says he's doing. http://jonathanstark.com/blog/2011/07/14/broadcasting-mobile-currency/#more-1486 http://jonathanstark.com/blog/2011/07/14/broadcasting-mobile...

Apple-Guy 15y ago
The cached client* page is still visible when I checked it. Starbucks is there. Somehow they removed it after the story came out. Let's see, it must be coffeestrategies' fault. Edit*: about -> client

kellishaver 15y ago

I really don't think this is the case at all. I've known Mr. Stark for some time now and he is an honest man of integrity - a good, decent guy. It's an experiment, exactly as he says it is. I discussed it with him the very first day he started the project. I'll choose to believe my friend on this one.

ajays 15y ago
If that is the case, then why did the company delete its graphic of the clients? http://mobiquityinc.com/clients/ http://mobiquityinc.com/clients/ Apparently, Starbucks is a client of theirs, and Stark is a VP: Mobiquity Vice President of Application Architecture.
- kellishaver 15y ago
  I can't give you a reason other than speculation. The author of the blog post states that he had to go to Google cache to find the page in the first place, so there's no telling how long ago it was removed from Mobiquity's site. It makes no sense for them to remove the entire page when they could simply replace the Starbucks logo with that of another clients. Couple that with the fact that we have no idea when the page was changed and it sounds more like removing the client page was part of a decision regarding the overall content of their site and not an attempt to hide anything. A past affiliation between Starbucks and Mobiquity has no bearing at all on the current situation if it is not ongoing, and still doesn't imply any personal affiliation with Mr. Stark.
  - AlfaWolph 15y ago
    Someone within the last 24 hours went in and deleted Google cache though..
    - kellishaver 15y ago
      You don't have to be the owner of the page to request it be removed from Google cache. Who knows, the author could have done it to lend the theory more credibility and try to generate more scandal and thus more blog traffic. See? Un-founded accusations can work both ways.

kapilkale 15y ago

Whoever ends up being responsible for this-- kudos to them; it has been an entertaining experiment. If it was Sbux, it does make me wonder how many of these viral campaigns I've missed because they've been better guised.

xer0x 15y ago

This is awesome?! A viral marketing campaign directed at us! Wow. Response from HN could be: "...we are flattered that he chose HN for his social experiment"

drivingmenuts 15y ago
Or we could just go the "Machiavellian manipulation of HN readers by lying like a rug." Meh, either way. I don't do SBUX. I can make my own caffeination much cheaper.

chaostheory 15y ago

Fake or not, I really liked it. It was different and most importantly it made me feel good. If this is advertising I don't mind. It's a lot better than normal commercials I tend to ignore. I just wish they didn't pretend that they had nothing to do with it.

patio11 15y ago

I like the Wikipedia suggestion most of the time: assume good faith. He works with Starbucks at his day job. He decided to do a hack using an API he was exposed to there. This is not exactly nefarious, even to the severely-damaged-evil-meter version of nefarious which includes "intentionally and with forethought committing the sin of marketing." I have often used work technologies/clients at play and play technologies at work.

kellishaver 15y ago
Just to clarify, he's not using a Starbucks API. He's scraping the data from the user page. The API the card uses (for Twitter, for others to check the balance, etc.) is one he created for the project. A company he works for, in a completely unrelated capacity (application architecture != marketing) has in the past, at least, worked for or with Starbucks. Whether that's ongoing or not is between Starbucks and Mobiquity, but even if they are it's no indication of a professional or personal relationship between Starbucks and Mr. Stark. Jonathan's a friend of mine, so I'll take him at his word on this one.
- yuhong 15y ago
  So the company happens to be unaffiliated with Starbucks now, but is showcased because it was a past client?
  - kellishaver 15y ago
    Sorry, my response was worded a bit poorly - I'll edit it. I have no idea if they still have a relationship with Starbucks or not.
- sesqu 15y ago
  I'd just like to point out that the application he architechts is for marketing, so it's not exactly unrelated. That said, I don't much mind either way.
gamble 15y ago
There's still the question of why Mobiquity pulled their client list from the website. That's either an eyebrow-raising coincidence, or they're not cool with casual visitors knowing there's a business relationship.

carsonm 15y ago

Nah. I don't know Jonathan, but I've followed him on Twitter for quite a while after reading his O'Reilly published book on iPhone web app dev. (I think he's also the guy who took over maintenance of jQTouch.) Anyway, watching the whole thing evolve on his Twitter stream, it sure seems sincere. "Suspected to be a viral marketing campaign" might be a more appropriate headline here. Conspiracy theories are fun to think about, but too many things don't add up for this one. Thin evidence of it, a potentially anti-Starbucks agenda by coffeestrategies, the fact that Jonathan is a real live person with tons of professional credibility, and the fact that in order for it to be true, Jonathan would have had to pro-actively lie to all those of us who follow and trust him. That's strikes me as exceedingly unlikely.

geraldalewis 15y ago

1) I read the 'The company later had its employees comment on my blog with fictitious postings' out of context. It's not referring to `Jonathan's Card` but to the `Pay it Forward` campaign. Just pointing that out since it seems like others were not clear on that detail either. 2) Calling those `Pay it Forward` posts "fictitious" isn't merited. I would not be surprised to see an employee of any company posting a defense of the company they work for. 3) Anyone on HN who read "but unfortunately failed to anticipate that I can see the originating IP address of incoming comments" and didn't say to themselves "how does OP know they were trying to obfuscate their identity?" should be embarrassed. It's always a good idea to read posts critically, and it's always a good idea to accept the least cynical understanding of a situation until compelling evidence is provided to the contrary. I'll consider this submission as bait until something substantial is posted.

sesqu 15y ago
3) When an employee of a company publicly defends that company without disclosing their financial interest, I find it difficult to believe it just didn't cross their mind.
benatkin 15y ago
On top of that, there's encouraging clicks on Google ads regardless of interest (some call it click fraud). http://www.coffeestrategies.com/2011/08/08/starbucks-and-the-starkbucks-jonathan-card-viral-marketing-campaign#comment-10858 http://www.coffeestrategies.com/2011/08/08/starbucks-and-the...

citricsquid 15y ago

The only "bad" thing in my eyes is the cover up, if it is indeed being covered up. However until it's proven otherwise I'm going to assume this is good old finding-shit-where-there-isn't-shit which the internet is oh so good at! Even if the guy does work Starbucks (directly or indirectly) it's a clever idea, I enjoyed looking at it (and wish I could have taken part) and this won't change if it was some "viral marketing".

metafour 15y ago

Not sure how credible this is but the article does have a comment from someone saying that the twitter feed said the card had money when in fact it did not. They allude that this is part of the marketing ploy. Did anyone else experience this? My guess would be that it's just not updated in real time and they just happened to go at the wrong time. If we're giving the benefit of the doubt...

kellishaver 15y ago
You are correct that the Twitter feed isn't quite real-time. It only updates once a minute and the card was getting a lot of activity.
geraldalewis 15y ago
I appreciate that you asked in earnest, but the original comment conjures images of "trip-and-fall grifts" and "playing the long con". I usually look at big things like this in terms of where the money's going. But in the context of 'get unwitting customers to show up for free coffee when there's no money on a viral marketing gift card so that they'll spend money anyway', I'd ask 'where's the credit going' -- and no one at Starbucks corporate will claim creating a sleazy confidence game for some career leverage. And I'd also ask Occam for a razor.
jyap 15y ago
I put in $11 on Sunday at a very slow time. I saw the $11 top up shortly after in real time on the @jonathanscard Twitter feed. It was the only tweet for about 10 minutes when my $11 was mostly used up. My proof! http://twitpic.com/62shre http://twitpic.com/62shre Then someone contacted me via Twitter to say that they used my credits: https://twitter.com/#!/PinoyxJay/status/100455783979954176 https://twitter.com/#!/PinoyxJay/status/100455783979954176 Believe what you want.

benatkin 15y ago

I am disappointed after reading the article. Based on the title I expected to see some evidence. A business relationship that may not even be current and scrubbing the site doesn't count.

athst 15y ago

marketing campaign or not, I think it's really clever. If all marketing campaigns were even half as interesting, we'd all be a lot better off.

FreshCode 15y ago

If it's true, this is so genius.

hv23 15y ago

Disappointed with the misleading title of the post-- "Jonathan's Card revealed as viral marketing campaign". Browsing the comments, it's clear that a lot of people are jumping to conclusions without reading the full blog post (as is the wont of many on the web), which suggests /some/ link between Starbucks and this campaign-- but is circumstantial at best. It's anything but the smoking gun that the title would have you believe. What really happened is another story (I'm inclined to "assume good faith" in this instance), but I'm tired of seeing disingenuous titles of articles around the web that are used to blatantly misinform.

jonathanstark 15y ago

Big thanks to all of the folks who have supported sanity on this thread. My thoughts here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/jonathans-card/the-real-deal/174391689299156 https://www.facebook.com/notes/jonathans-card/the-real-deal/... Peace, j

Udo 15y ago
I think the project is a great idea, and it would still have been a great idea even if Starbucks was involved. Thanks for doing it!
Apple-Guy 15y ago
Why did mobiquity erase this page, which lists Starbucks as a client? http://mobiquityinc.com/clients/ http://mobiquityinc.com/clients/
paulnelligan 15y ago
Hi Jonathan, I'm not up for the witchhunt, as far as I'm concerned people have done far worse than what's been suggested here ... However, don't you think this could have been avoided by not saying 'I am not in any way affiliated with Starbucks' ? - it's a bit misleading, and I think people are right to be suspicious of your motives as a result, dontcha think ?
AlfaWolph 15y ago
Forgive me if this rubbed you the wrong way. I could've worded the title better. FWIW, no one (at least not me) is questioning the good intentions behind this even if it was planned. I just thought it was a cool idea, viral campaign or not.
danso 15y ago
Quite tellingly, you make no denial of the main accusations. The question is not whether this was your idea, but whether you were telling the truth when you said that your website was 100% not affiliated.with Starbucks.
- hullo 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

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LiveTheDream 15y ago

I didn't know it was possible to manually clear Google's cache of a web page. Turns out, it is: https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1091779&hl=en https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answ...

saalweachter 15y ago

I'm generally willing to give someone a pass for repeatedly emphasizing that their statements/projects/opinions are not in any way affiliated with their employer. I don't often make statements tangentially related to my work, but when I do I try to be as clear as possible that I am just a dude and not a spokesman, and beg people not to blow my statements out of proportion and get me fired. On the other hand, this man appears to be a marketer, so I assume that he has plenty of opportunities to try out his marketing ideas at work, and doesn't do them as a side project. I think the biggest question I have isn't "did he do this on his own time, or during his 9-to-5?", but "were 'real' people putting money on the card, or did the Starbucks marketing department just refill it when necessary?" As long as it was real people putting the money in and taking the money out, it's still an interesting social experiment, even if it was crafted as a marketing campaign.

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MaysonL 15y ago

Whether or not it was meant as a viral marketing campaign for Starbucks, that's what it's turned out to be. The road to hell, and all that...