You know that awkward feeling you get when you see a technology trend shoved where it shouldn't be? When you see a huge, multi-million dollar company straight up getting it wrong? Yeah, we get to feel that again today. Pepsi is planning to release a line of vending machines complete with their own social network.

Kind of. See, I'm not sure Pepsi really understands what "social networking" means. You can't just throw in a small degree of interactivity and call it "networking." But anyway, here's what they're thinking: these new machines will have touchscreen user interfaces, because of course they will, and with them you'll be able to remotely buy sodas for your buddies. That's it. That's the whole scheme. 

It'll work by taking the name and cell phone number of your friend and texting them an alert that you've bought them a soda. The next time they're near a socially-minded Pepsi vending machine, they can redeem a code in the text message and collect their bottle of carbonated corn syrup. The system will apparently also support random acts of kindness in that they'll let you buy sodas for strangers, but who's to say they won't just take your money and never dish out? The strangers certainly won't be able to tell. 

Not only is this shameless trend-grinding, it's also weird that Pepsi figures they'll be able to convince people to fork over phone numbers so readily. Facebook already makes me uncomfortable when it asks for my number every time I log in. Dude can't take a hint. It seems like only a matter of time before all our info is on the corporate record--at least if people keep throwing their data out into the public realm. 

I don't know if Pepsi's scheme will actually come to fruition on any kind of major scale. It seems that the machines will only really work if there's lots of them around, but even then it looks more like a novelty that will last maybe half a week before people realize that there's not anything particularly fun about sending their friends Pepsis via text. Just because you brand it as "social" doesn't mean it's going to be addictive. Sorry, Pepsi. 

(via Geekologie)