Hasta La Ideas

Another great Consumed column in the Times tomorrow, with Rob Walker discussing the buying and giving of virtual artifacts on the net. Here’s a taste:

As more of us live more of our lives in digital contexts, it seems plausible that immaterialism will become more common. Consuming things made of bits might sound weird, but actually it offers a lot of the same attractions that make people consume things made of atoms. Facebook’s digital gifting is one relatively mainstream example. Consider the Fort Worth, Tex., company Alamofire. Its best-known creation is a Facebook application called Pack Rat. While nominally a game, it’s really premised on a virtual version of the urge to collect things: in this case, the things are “cards” that are basically little pixel-pictures. The company calls its wares “digital collectibles.”

Read the whole thing here, today!

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