Pepsi Social Vending Machines

Pepsi is beginning to roll out new 'social' vending machines in the US. 

It seems Pepsi are hopping on the 'social' bandwagon. How exactly can a vending machine be social? The new machines allow users to select a drink as a 'gift' for a friend, by entering their name and mobile number. This then sends a code to the friend that can be used to redeem the drink at one of pepsi's special machines. This seems to fall between utterly pointless and futuristically cool. I imagine buying someone who happens to be miles away a drink would have it's novelty.