Why not digital trading cards?

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To tell the truth, it sound like another one of those ideas whose time has come, and gone. Yes, having our trading cards on our hard drives would keep our rooms cleaner, but what would their be to trade? I could simply send a copy of my entire collection to a friend.

But Sports Illustrated still thinks the idea has potential - if not for kids, then for adults. It seems to fill a much in demand niche as a rather innocuous source of soft porn. The magazine apparently publishes a yearly Swimsuit edition that can be purchased in the traditional magazine format or as a DVD or a video. Any connection to sport that this video may have seems purely accidental (I haven't seen it myself). In addition to the print edition and the DVD/video the magazine also advertises (see? it wasn't my idea) trading cards. One side has the scantily clad model, and clicking on the correct button "flips" the card so that we can get her statistics, just like with baseball cards. Just who is going to collect these cards, or what he or she is expected to do with them, is beyond me. There don't seem to be any cards which are rare and hard to get: "I'll trade you a Cameron Diaz, a Tyra Banks and a Cindy Crawford for your Heidi Klum" isn't the sort of phrase you expect to hear from collectors of these cards. But I haven't really investigated this topic ... yet.

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