Starbucks is facing increasing competition from all quarters, including Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's, so the giant of the coffee biz is hoping to increase its market share with innovative new products and brand extensions, with a major focus on mobile going forward.

On the brand extension front, the java giant just started selling its single-serve coffee and espresso maker Verismo online. The caffeinated masses are apparently into it. Cliff Burrows, president of the Americas for Starbucks, says that sales of the machine have “exceeded expectations.” Starbucks is now rolling the product out to 4,300 stores and should finish having them in place in the next few weeks.

“Innovation is so important to us,” Burrows told the Houston Chronicle. “In 2009 we introduced ready-brew instant coffee. This summer we introduced Refreshers, energy drinks made from green coffee extract. We make them hand-crafted, sell them in cans and as instant beverages. Our innovation is ongoing.”Continue reading...

Starbucks’ $25 million investment in and deployment of Square for mobile payments, signed Tuesday by Square CEO Jack Dorsey and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, will help spur adoption of mobile commerce in the US, with a halo effect that will be felt beyond.

Square will begin processing all credit and debit card transactions at Starbucks’ nearly 7,000 company-owned shops in the United States this fall via Pay With Square, and soon, customers will order their café du jour and charge it to their credit card just by saying their name. 

“Starbucks is one of the largest organizations in the world, taking technology like Square — simple, fast and focused on customer experience — and bringing it to a massive scale,” commented Dorsey to the New York Times.

The Twitter co-founder and executive chairman (naturally) tweeted the whole deal, sharing the big news late Tuesday night in New York and subsequently posting photos of Adam Brotman, Starbucks' chief digital officer, using Square (and tipping 30%) in a NYC taxi; the deal-signing with Schultz taken Tuesday night in New York; and a twitpic on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday morning.

It's a huge week for Square: it's also receiving some cross-promotional love from Apple. Check out the new TV commercial for the iPad (being swiped as the voiceover says "make a sale") that debuted Tuesday night, below.Continue reading...

At the Cannes Lions "festival of creativity" (advertising, and marketing) in France this week, Facebook and Twitter are jousting for the spotlight. With festival attendance at an all-time high, up from 9,000 delegates in 2011 to almost 11,000 this year, the exposure to marketers and creatives makes it well worth elbowing the rosé-imbibing crowds on the Croisette.

Twitter, which has been promoting the #CannesLions hashtag on a special page, hoisted its newly spiffed up blue bird logo at the entrance to the Palais de Festivals welcoming attendees and none too subtly reminding them to keep tweeting. 

Cofounder Jack Dorsey, at Cannes for the first time, tweeted the photo at top. He will receive the Cannes Lions “media person of the year” award (previously bestowed on Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Eric Schmidt and Microsoft's Steve Ballmer), while Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is set to give the keynote on Wednesday.Continue reading...

GM exits advertising on Facebook, raising questions about FB's revenue projections as site boosts number of shares available ahead of Friday IPO.

Samsung loses $10 billion market value on Apple chip loss.

Intel launches employee-curated digital magazine.

American Airlines sees unions reject contract offer.

Amylin attracts interest from pharma rivals.

Apple moves toward larger iPhone screens.

BBC bumps Blue Peter in children's programming shuffle.

Berkshire Hathaway takes stakes in GM and Viacom.Continue reading...

Twitter is closing in on an $800 million funding deal, $400 million of which will be used to cash out current investors and employees.

Aside from additional revenue, the move will allow current stakeholders to monetize privately held common stock, as the company will probably not file for an IPO in the immediate future.

“Once the latest investments are complete, Twitter’s total cash haul since it was founded five years ago will be $760 million,” according to AllThingsD.

Current investors Benchmark Capital, Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, and other venture capitalists will be joined, going forward, by Russian heavyweight DST Global, an investor in Facebook, Zynga and Groupon. Continue reading...

The fallout over whether or not Congressman Anthony Weiner did or did not tweet a photo of his personal "member of Congress" (Weiner says his Twitter account was hacked; follow the flap on Twitter at #weinergate) could spell the end for one social media brand.

"Just had the FBI show up at my apartment, my first thought was: "She said she was 18"...turns out they weren't here for that" tweeted Noah Everett, the founder of Twitpic, this afternoon as the scandal was escalating. He may have been was half-joking but the challenges facing his social media startup are deadly serious.

(Editor's note: Everett was indeed joking about the 18-year-old, as we surmised, and confirmed to us — see below — that he did receive a visit from the FBI. he also corrected us that the lewd picture tweeted from Weiner's Twitter account was hosted on yfrog, not Twitpic, for which we apologize. NPR's headline got it wrong, and so did we.)

Twitpic, the service that piggybacks on Twitter allowing users to link photos to tweets, is already reeling from bad publicity. After the brand announced a licensing deal with WENN.com which would allow the celebrity gossip service to license its images, several celebrities including Ellen DeGeneres said they would abandon the service.Continue reading...

Amazon is expected to announced "online media locker" on Tuesday.

Apple's iPad 2 sells out internationally.

EBay is acquiring GSI Commerce for $2.4 billion, intensifying its e-commerce rivalry with Amazon.com.

Facebook depression seen as a new risk for teens.

IBM's Watson has a new job.

Japan's latest quake-related bad news: Radiation has been found outside nuclear reactor, signaling meltdown.Continue reading...

Twitter celebrated turning five today with a segment on ABC's Good Morning America and a video, above, that highlights the reasons why a cross-section of users (including Richard Branson, Snoop Dogg, Hillary Clinton, Martha Stewart, Serena Williams) are fans of the micromessaging social service.