Topps and GetFugu have announced a new innovation in the baseball card industry that will link baseball cards directly to the world wide web.
Though it's name usually conjures up images of tradition and history, Topps has been taking some steps to push baseball cards into the future through the use of emerging technologies. Its 3D Live cards for both baseball and football garnered some media attention for incorporating augmented reality, something that is likely to become much more commonplace over the first part of the next decade.
On Tuesday, Topps made another step toward modernizing its products by entering a partnership with GetFugu, a company that specializes in mobile search technology. Soon, collectors will be able to use their mobile phones or other web-enabled devices to interact with Topps baseball cards, sending them directly to relevant places on the internet.
Thanks to GetFugu's image recognition services, collectors will be able to use cameras in their phones to take pictures of their cards. The phone will know who is on that card and send the user to either the Wikipedia page for that player, Topps' online store or the company's offerings on eBay.
"We are thrilled to be working with GetFugu on this new technology," Topps Chief Digital Officer Steve Grimes said in a press release. "Their mobile search and recognition technology enables our customers to interact with trading cards in new and exciting ways and opens up new revenue opportunities for the future."
The first batch of cards to be enhanced for image recognition are already available. Legends of the Game inserts found in 2009 Topps Baseball Series 1, Series 2 and Updates and Highlights, which feature both past and present stars of the diamond, will be the first batch of cards that get this new high tech treatment.
GetFugu's mobile software is designed to work regardless of what carrier or platform a phone uses. The company claims it will be usable on 97 percent of the world's available phones in the near future.
That means just about all baseball card collectors should soon be able to test out this new innovation for themselves.
"Collectors, both young and old, now have a mobile application to access information on baseball players with a click of a button on their mobile phone," GetFugu Chairman Michael Solomon said. "We look forward to building our relationship with Topps and providing our services across other product lines in the future."
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