Starbucks To Start Up iTunes Wi-Fi Store with 50 Million Free Songs

From Oct. 2 to Nov. 7, more than 10,000 Starbucks shops will be handing out free “Song of the Day” iTunes download cards. Starbucks estimates it will hand out 1.5 million songs per day, over 50 million in all, to promote the iTunes Wi-Fi store to which Starbucks will grant free access over its T-Mobile Wi-Fi networks.

If you recall from the Sept. 5 announcement, Starbucks locations in New York and Seattle will be first, on Oct. 2, followed by San Francisco in November, and many more locations in 2008. The Song of the Day promotion will not be limited to these stores, however.It appears that, for the moment, redeeming the cards will still take a computer running iTunes. I just looked all through the Wi-Fi store on the touch, and can’t find any place where you might input a iTunes code. But surely that’s something Apple is working on, so we’ll keep an eye out.

You don’t get your pick—each card is for a specific song—but it doesn’t look like they’ll be handing out crap. As expected, KT Tunstall and Paul McCartney will have Songs of the Day, but the first selection is “Jokerman,” an absolutely brilliant Bob Dylan number, recorded with Mark Knopfler back in the early 1980s for the Infidels album. (Sorry, I’m a fan.) [Reuters, AP]