Have a Cup of Coffee, on Me
Jonathan’s Card Gives Away Kindness and a Free Caffeine Boost at Starbucks
If you’re in need of a little pick me up today, but short on cash, have a cup of coffee on Jonathan - he insists.
Jonathan Stark, a mobile application consultant who the Wall Street Journal has called an expert on publishing desktop data to the web, started a social experiment that is catching the nation's attention.
It's a coffee drinker's delight. And, it's for real. Anyone can download a picture of Stark's Starbucks card to their mobile phone and buy coffee at Starbucks with it. Seriously. Stark's card gets charged.
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He kicked off the unique experiment in an effort to use digital currency on mobile phones.
All you need to do is download a picture of his Starbucks card onto your phone, scan the image at the cash register, and you’re all set for a mid-day “Venti jolt” as he likes to call it, if the funds aren’t already depleted.
Stark lives in Rhode Island and his social experiment works similarly to the “take a penny, leave a penny” trays found in most convenient stores, he notes on his website.
But his concept is “get a coffee, give a coffee.”
“I stumbled on the idea while doing research related to my work with Mobiquity (a tech company he works for) related to Broadcasting Mobile Currency,” Starks shared on his site.
“Jonathan’s Card is an experiment in social sharing of physical goods using digital currency on mobile phones.”
A new take on an old Italian custom called “Caffe Pagato,” where generous patrons in Italy prepaid for coffee for future customers who were short on cash, Stark hoped to reboot the wonderful tradition in a digital world.
“I’m broadcasting money,” he blogged.
More than 1,000 coffee-lovers have enjoyed a cup of joe on Jonathan since starting the experiment mid-July. Though he only put $30 on the card at first, other donors have charitably added to the card when the balance was running low.
About $10,730.93 and counting have so far been added to the account.
The idea for anonymous reloads came from his friend Stephen Dolenski, who discovered that anyone could reload the card at any time online as long as they had the card number.
Opening up the card to accept donations and building a website to explain his ongoing experiment, Stark’s coffee pot continues to be filled, thanks to all the generous consumers.
A Twitter site and Facebook page was also built to manage and track the funds, which is updated regularly with the available balance.
Some users post their donations on the Facebook page, while others choose to remain anonymous. Hundreds are tweeting about the coffee experiment.
Though many have responded positively to the free caffeine boost, a few people, like blogger Andrew Hetzel, have gone so far as to call Stark’s experiment a marketing ploy to drive up sales for the retail giant.
Hetzel, who took a deeper look into the experiment, found a connection between Starbucks and Stark. Starbucks had once been a client of Mobiquity, the company where Stark was employed. When the blogger posted about his findings, the Mobiquity client list suddenly disappeared as well as the Google cache of the page.
Stark, surprised by the claims, denied all of the allegations and stated on his site that the only connection he had to Starbucks was regularly frequenting a particular location in Providence.
“The thing that really bothers me is that the accusation threatens to erase the good feelings generated by this,” Stark told TechCrunch. “[Hetzel] is turning hope into remorse.”
“While doing so might be disruptive to my friends and family, I feel strongly that I owe it to believers everywhere to take a stand against cynics who are too jaded to believe that anyone would ever do something nice for others for the simple reason that it feels good.”
Starbucks also informed TechCrunch that they had no knowledge of Stark’s plans and had no official relationship with him or the company that he worked for.
“We do think his project is interesting and we’re flattered that he is using Starbucks as a part of his ‘pay-it-forward’ experiment and look forward to watching it develop,” a spokesperson shared.
Mobiquity further sought to clarify the situation as well, stating to TechCrunch that “‘Jonathan’s Card’ experiment was in no way a paid viral campaign conducted with or on behalf of Starbucks.”
A company release said, “Mobiquity has no professional affiliation with Starbucks. As a young company launched this past March, Mobiquity had initially included on its website the logos of companies with whom members of our team had worked with in the past, as we stated on the page. The company took down the page in late July as part of an ongoing site redesign-complete coincidence, not conspiracy.”
“Jonathan Stark was not the Mobiquity team member who had previously worked with Starbucks. But he does admit to liking their coffee. If you read Jonathan’s original post on the subject of July 14th, you’ll see he was as surprised as anyone else that his experiment in ‘broadcasting money’ was successful.”
What started as an act of kindness and curiosity has taken an odd turn. Regardless of the stigma now surrounding the card, the coffee continues to flow freely from Stark’s own pocket and other generous givers.
It’s a “frictionless route that’s just personal enough, but not too personal...to easily make someone else’s day,” Stark told reporters.
His one request: Keep the purchases to a $3.00 maximum, and share the coffee wealth.
Follow Stark's Starbucks card at http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard. Information about Stark visit http://jonathanstark.com/card/.
