Wired has a breathless story about 'playlistism' - kids using playlists to judge other kids. So what? Your taste in music has always helped defined your coolness quotient. In fact, playlists are far easier to mechansims to game than, say t-shirts.

Here's a fun example: when I was a punk, there was a kid in my high school that wanted to be a punk, because it was cool - not because he liked the music. How could he do this? Well, he realized he could buy a couple of t-shirts, dye his hair, and get a mohawk. The problem was, he had no idea where to get the t-shirts, the hair dye, or the mohawk. So he paid some of the punks $50 to help him out.

Of course, it didn't work, because he wasn't seen as credible - the punks made sure everyone knew this was a financial transaction.

If he'd had access to playlists, he could have just found some angry-sounding punk tracks, added them to his playlist, and slowly been perceived as a closet punk - even though he really was nothing of the sort.