Topps is Going In The Right Direction

Two weeks ago, we were in the midst of a debate over the legitimacy of the UD awards, and not many people were happy with the way it turned out. That is now in the past, and since then, Topps has picked up the banner and started running with it in the opposite direction. Although they were second in line to embrace social media, they have organized a wonderful new event that really does a better job of celebrating than any award could do. As you may have seen posted on any number of other sites, Topps' Hobby Roundtable will start this Monday with a catalouge of responses from bloggers of every category. These bloggers, including myself, were given 11 questions to answer without any limits on what we can talk about, and the answers given by the 12 people involved will be posted at the beginning of next week.

The reason that I think this will work better than any other manufacturer attempt at a similar discussion is because of the questions that will be covered. Whether it is the direction and future of the hobby, or even scam prevention, its all there. The list of questions has been posted over on VOTC, and from what I can tell, Topps is taking this opportunity as pure discussion. This is in place of worrying about how hard it will be to prevent us from speaking poorly about their goals and products, and that is terrific. This idea has never been done this way by anyone on their side of the table before, and I applaud them for putting it together. Their new social media consultant has taken their online presence in a completely awesome direction, starting with their oft-forgotten twitter account, and there are many bloggers who are happy they did.

Alhtough I am not sure how the discussion will turn out, mainly due to the space needed to post answers, I have a backup plan. With 12 or so people answering questions on the biggest topics in the hobby right now, its going to be an epic post to get them all in. We were already notified that 4-8 answers would be used per question due to that restriction, and once he sees the length of those answers, Im guessing it may be less than that. Luckily, I have SCU where I can post the unabridged responses to the questions he sent out, so be sure to check this site if you want more answers. I may even take it a step further and actually compile EVERY answer from everyone because I don’t really care about space. We'll see how it turns out.

Speaking of taking it a step further, I have been tossing around an idea ever since Card Corner Radio has gotten the response it has. My idea originally was to get one blogger from each sport and do a roundtable discussion similar to what Topps is doing on paper, and take it to a place where we can actually respond to each other. I have yet to put it into motion, but depending on the success of what this roundtable turns out to be, I may do that sooner than expected.

Lastly, it looks as if social media has gotten a good foot hold in the hobby, and I think its about time. We have a great base of people who know tons of information about the cards they collect, and I am glad that Topps has stepped to take advantage of the information we hold instead of the popularity of our sites. Hopefully this will be the start of something great, and with the Blog Bat Around in ramping up for next week as well, I think the next few weeks should be a highlight reel of our talents.