AdAge had a story yesterday with snippits of advice for Starbucks following memogate. Lots of good points here, but these strike me as being more right:

Larry Wu, VP-consumer strategist food and beverage, Iconoculture (A former director of research and development for Starbucks) -- "It used to be about great service, knowledgeable expertise and love of coffee. Now it's about love of profit, margin and growth." Starbucks "should pull back on the food and make coffee the core again."

Seth Godin, author of "Small is the New Big" -- He said the bigger question is: "Should Starbucks be willing to take a short-term stock and market-share hit in order to return to its authenticity?" When it comes to brands, "shareholders, in the long run, are always wrong," he said, adding: "In order to be big, they have to give up stuff."

And my absolute favorite:

David Aaker, VP of Prophet and professor of marketing at University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business --  "This is a portfolio problem. Once you get into supermarkets, it's not easy to pull back." But he said it's possible. "One option would be to create a sub-brand for an upscale Starbucks." It's an idea much like the Hallmark Gold Crown concept, where the chain could create an experience around the original Starbucks for customers who want that level of service vs. the grab-and-go business the company has developed.

This last statement is virtually the same point I made in my post: "I think the biggest issue is that they have gone from 1,000 to 13,000 stores in 10 years. Widespread availability, by definition, leads to reduced uniqueness and reduced uniqueness amounts to commoditization." It's almost to the point that mass equals commiditization these days. Feel free to disagree.