---
title: "Starbucks is watching your every cup"
author: "Christopher S Penn"
date: 2008-03-20
url: https://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/03/starbucks-is-watching-your-every-cup/
categories:
  - "Foodblogging"
  - "Marketing"
tags:
  - "Marketing"
---

# Starbucks is watching your every cup

Today, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced that they had acquired Coffee Equipment Company and its Clover system of coffee machines, single-serving cup makers that will let Starbucks customize your coffee for you. So what? The So What is this: Clover coffee machines are networked. They all speak to headquarters via CloverNet, and monitor EVERYTHING about your cup of coffee. [From the web site](https://cloverequipment.com/whyclover/clovernet.aspx):

> Know with CloverNet™, a service that gives you web access to your Clovers. Find out what's brewing on each of your Clovers right now, and visualize business trends through real-time charting. CloverNet also makes it easy to update brew parameters for all of your coffees, and to keep your Clovers in peak operation through system monitoring.

Starbucks doesn't give a rat's ass about the coffee - the machines are pure marketing wizardry, giving real time data flows to central command. This is what makes Clover and CEC a smart acquisition. Starbucks: Because Google shouldn't have a lock on Big Brother. **Did you enjoy this blog post? If so, please subscribe right now!**[![](https://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-email.png)](https://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=761786) [![](https://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-google.png)](https://www.google.com/ig/add?feedurl=https://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn) [![](https://www.christopherspenn.com/btn-rss.png)](https://feeds.feedburner.com/ChristopherSPenn)Get this and other great articles from the source at [www.ChristopherSPenn.com](https://www.ChristopherSPenn.com)