Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Jonathan Stark’s community-giving Starbucks Card is no more. At 7 p.m. PT Friday, Starbucks reluctantly pulled the plug on Stark’s pay-it-forward social experiment following allegations of fraud or misuse.

Starbucks made the decision to shut down the communal Jonathan’s Card, already in violation of Starbucks Card program terms, after it came to light that funds were being misappropriated.

Adam Brotman, vice president of digital ventures at Starbucks, phoned Stark earlier Friday evening to inform him that the card would be deactivated. Starbucks, he says, was rooting for the experiment from the sidelines, even though the company’s terms do not permit the use of shared registered cards.

“I’m sad about it, first and foremost, because we were legitimately cheering on this experiment,” Brotman says.

Friday morning, entrepreneur Sam Odio’s “How to use Jonathan’s card to buy yourself an iPad” blog post lit the web on the fire. Some saw the card exploit as an evolution of the experiment; others saw it as theft. Odio even later offered to return the funds. Once the exploit was public, however, Starbucks felt compelled to deactivate the card.

Stark launched Jonathan’s Card on July 14 as a social adaption of the “take a penny, leave a penny” concept. Hundreds of people donated several thousand dollars to the communal coffee project before it was shut down.

The Jonathan’s Card website has been updated with the following message: “We believe this is the start to a bigger more glowing picture. In the last 5 days or so, we’ve received hundreds of stories of people doing small things to brighten a stranger’s day: Paying for the next car at the drive through. Sharing a pick me up with someone who has had a rough time. Charging up a phone card and sharing it with strangers at the airport … So, tonight we lose our barcode. But of course, we never needed it in the first place.”

The @jonathanscard Twitter account, which was previously updating followers with the card’s balance, observed its end with this final tweet: “The next chapter begins jonathanstark.com/card.”

Red Bull has pulled the plug on its plan to have daredevil Felix Baumgartner skydive from the edge of space because it is being sued by a California promoter who says Red Bull stole his idea.

Baumgartner planned to ride a balloon called Stratos to an altitude of 120,000 feet and step into the void, breaking the record Air Force Col. Joe Kittinger set in 1960 when he jumped from 102,800 feet. Red Bull claimed the jump was a scientific pursuit to study the effects of a supersonic fall on the human body, but this being Red Bull you know publicity was a big part of it.

Promoter Daniel Hogan claims he pitched the idea to Red Bull in 2004 and provided a detailed plan, only to have Red Bull tell him, “Thanks, but no” about a year later. He sued in April, claiming Red Bull used his proposal as the basis for the Red Bull Stratos jump. The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims the stunt would be worth $375 million to $625 million in advertising revenue, according to Courthouse News Service.

Red Bull insists it has done nothing wrong but is stopping the program.

“Despite the fact that many other people over the past 50 years have tried to break Colonel (Ret.) Joe Kittinger’s record, and that other individuals have sought to work with Red Bull in an attempt to break his record, Mr. Hogan claims to own certain rights to the project and filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit earlier this year in a Californian court,” the company said. “Red Bull has acted appropriately in its prior dealings with Mr. Hogan, and will demonstrate this as the case progresses. Due to the lawsuit, we have decided to stop the project until this case has been resolved.”

According to Courthouse News, Hogan says he lined up Lindstrand Technologies to build the balloon and a Russian company to develop the spacesuit the jumper would wear. He also had a former NASA flight surgeon and an expert on the aerodynamics of the human body on board.

“Red Bull never acknowledged the plaintiff’s role in Red Bull Stratos,” the suit states. Hogan is seeking an injunction stopping the jump, disgorgement of any profits and punitive damages.