Imagine you're queueing at Starbucks with a few coffee aficionados in front of you. While surfing on your smartphone, you come across an interesting article, but you need a (trial) subscription to read it. This is precisely, what the Starbucks test is about: Do you manage to complete the (trial) subscription before it is your turn ?
The term Starbucks test was coined by Richard Gutjahr, a journalist and an excellent expert on the publishing industry. The Starbucks Test is a litmus test for the userfriendliness of digital offerings. And his conclusion: (German) publishing houses and companies do rarely pass this test – as opposed to their US American counterparts.
Richard Gutjahr: "Think about it: we media people wasted almost two decades complaining about and fighting Google. We called our very own customers names - thieves or parasites, who refused to pay for our journalism, while we forgot to build digital cash registers that were suitable to fit our needs in these increasingly faster and mobile times."
Compare also: www.gutjahr.biz/lost-in-subscription
