Since the end of the iTunes song giveaway at Starbucks, I’ve noticed the addition of performance videos in promotion of James Taylor’s One Man Band live album. I’ve also seen more consecutive songs by the same artists from the same album, such as the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss duet album Raising Sand.
In my experience since the launch, the performance of the Tunes integration has been somewhat inconsistent. I intermittently get messages in iTunes saying that it cannot connect within the Starbucks and then the song list suddenly appears (and then disappears later). This seems unrelated to Wi-Fi as my connection stays active even during these period
All this leaves me wondering more about the system that Starbucks uses to drive the Sony LCD TVs in its stores. Is a PC mounted behind the screen? Is the application Flash-based? How often are new playlists downloaded?