Nice paper in The Village Voice about how ipod could replace mixtapes.

if you met someone cool and cute, someone you wanted to know better, you might make that person a mix tape (...) Today, such compilations are an anachronism. Most stereos don't even have tape decks anymore. Countless couples will probably trade mix CDs this Valentine's Day, but the point-and-click process of CD burning is rather sterile; Of course, there's one dramatic difference between an iPod and a mix tape: Mixes are entirely constructed. An iPod, by contrast, keeps no secrets. The iPod records what songs have been played both most recently and most often, so it quickly becomes a record of the owner's internal aural landscape. Listening to someone else's iPod is thus an intimate, almost invasive activity. On the scale of personal exposure, it's not exactly trading diaries, but it's much more revealing than a mix tape.