In the game Where's Cindy players try to locate Cindy. They have to follow clues around Google Earth (al). Although the clues link back to conventional web sites this still is a small step in the evolution of 3D worlds. In the future we can navigate over a virtual globe in 3D, to find buildings that don't exist, which we can enter and where our adventures continue. This is a small step in that direction.

Media company UPC lets consumers play with its new logo. Whoever moves a slider right or left, can open and close the flower. According to UPC, the flower is luminous blue and clear: energetic, moving, magic and intriguing. (source: upc). Brands enliven their logos and have customers have their say. In the future every logo will be interactive, and it will reflect the brand personality. In the end we interact with the logo, which in turn morphs to the brand agent, who is the most important visual character of the brand. This is a careful first step in that direction.

Google has added so-called Street view to Google maps for several big cities in the US, among which New York and San Francisco. Users can pick a spot on the map, and Google figures out what the view will be in a direction the user then can change (al). Google this way maps the world even preciser. Now through pictures; in the future recent pictures or (video) images of people taken a minute ago will be added. And so for every spot in the world. But this is only the basis for the mixed experiences to be projected directly in our glasses. Cars, people, containers, billboards etc will be erased if we want. Or we get the image of the street 50 years ago. And we get people projected we would like to see. Or brand agents if we like. Interesting stores will be highlighted in our view, the best restaurant get special attention, and if we should meet somebody who is walking here anyway, we won't miss that opportunity. The world will never be like before. Unless we go 'unplugged', the newest trend in 2020: feel the world on your bare feet. Scary...

Having lived life digitally (ultra-sounds, birth, youth, life as a grown-up, family reunions, and funeral: everything is recorded), our digital lives from now on continue even after death. At Dutch cemetery Larikshof in Rhenen there is a tombstone with a small TV-screen on which images of the deceased can be seen: the digizerk (digital tombstone). Relatives and friends can show pictures and videos on this screen. According to supplier steenhouwerij Rijtink, this is the first digital tombstone in the world. The screen now operates on a battery, but the company is working on tombstones operated through solar cells (sr, Dutch). Pictures and videos are virtual representatives of people's real lives. In a next step, these screens are connected to the internet. Relatives then can consult our social-network pages through the tombstones, watch the video of the funeral and the condolence register, listen to their favorite music, and see where friends will be buried later. And we can still interact with the avatar, the virtual representative of the deceased. Like our voice mail today, these virtual representatives keep reacting. The contact after all stays. And it will show behavior that will be an awful lot like the behavior of the deceived. A different world, that's for sure.

Through Google Earth and Google Maps you can now hear the world's sounds. Elephants in Africa, the rain forest in Brazil, and even the bells of the Notre Dame in Paris. American Bernie Krause has been gathering sound materials for 40 years, varying from singing birds and the cracking of melting glaciers, to rustling woods and the singing of whales. His company Wild Sanctuary has now published these sounds in the virtual world (dc, Dutch). And thus the virtual world becomes more and more real. Now with recorded sounds, recorded at a certain moment. In the future we will choose what sound of what moment we want to hear. From 40 years ago, from last week, or real time. Which will be like a telephone conversation. And that shows that the virtual world easily integrates phone, radio, and TV. It becomes one world. This is just a small step in that direction.

Video site YouTube shares its advertising income with its users. It calls these people user-partners. User-partners are treated as other content partners (yt). Brands, especially new brands, unite people. People who structurally or incidentally add value to the brand, are rewarded. Other people pay for that (now we pay indirectly, through advertisements, but in the end we will pay for the services, the experiences offered). Many brands will start using this form of co-creation. This is only the beginning.

Amazon starts an online music store in which you can buy and download MP3 music without digital rights management software. It is expected that Amazon will work with more than 12,000 music publishers, and thus can offer millions of songs. British recording company EMI has signed the first contract with Amazon. The store will open before the end of this year (dc, Dutch). Amazon this way could grow into a music coaching brand. For a start, a coaching brand needs to be complete: offer ALL music ever made in the world. After that, a music coaching brand can make selections on an individual basis, adapted to time, place and situation. This is a possible step in that direction.

Eighty Turkish mosques in the Netherlands shall be connected to a narrow casting network by the end of this year. At the moment 14 mosques already have a screen, providing information and advertisements. The network is financed by advertisers focusing on the Turkish community (em, Dutch). We will see screens and displays at various locations. The tighter the group visiting the location, the more added value the screens get. Through the screens, you could control who enters the location, show which people of your network are inside, or what elements of the experience they valued most. So that we directly know what we should choose. 'Casting' will not be in place any longer though. And we will have to get used to that, step by step.

Apple will show YouTube videos on the new Apple TV, the digital appliance that makes a wireless connection between computer and TV (am). This way a new home entertainment coaching brand could evolve: a brand that entertains you while sitting on your sofa, interactive or not, with all possible content ever made in the whole world. Completeness is important in the development of these kinds of brands. YouTube videos thus should be in there too.

French newspaper L'Echos will soon be available on ePaper: electronic thin and rollable paper that has the same sharpness as print, and that doesn't use any power once it is loaded. This 'paper' is integrated in the iLiad, a kind of pda that contains the ePaper (later it will be available separately), which thus can show the texts and images. Users can download an actualized version of the paper through a wifi-connection a couple of times a day. It is also possible to take notes on the paper, which then are stored in the iLiad (em, Dutch). Now newspapers are experimenting with e-paper in a PDA; in the future all brands will be accessible through these kinds of displays. This again is a new interface to the virtual world.

bol.com now also sells second-hand books. This shows that adding value to the lives of people is what it's all about. If a consumer doesn't value a new book more than a used book, brands offer a used item. All retail brands will start doing that. It started with cars, now we have books, what will be next... But even that is just the beginning. In the end brand manufacturers will keep in touch with every product through RFID chips, connected to the internet. The manufacturer won't guarantee the product for years, but it will keep offering (automated) help for years and years. This is the evolution in which not just sender and receiver, but also products lose their anonymity.

Google now lets you search in foreign languages. If you type 'wine tasting in Bordeaux', you can search through French web sites, and get the results back in English (gb). Brands start speaking the consumer's language. They understand the language, the word choices, and place them in their context. Google is still in the lead, but all brands will be able to do this sooner or later.

It is now possible to use water to make a dry (!) interactive 3D screen. In this FogScreen, a Finnish invention, movies, interactive games or people can be projected. The image is created by a PC, we can walk through the screen and it reacts at our fingers. As if sprinkles are falling from the sky, and we can catch them (fc). We make more and more screens for entering the virtual world. This kind of screens we will be able to show at all kinds of public locations. We determine what we see: where we are (virtually), who we see and what brands we interact with. This is a small step in that direction. Watch the video, especially the beginning and end:

Top Gear Magazine is giving away free shares in sports car brand Spyker for every new yearly subscription this month. The expectation is not for these new subscribers to directly cause an explosion of the exchange rate, but a subscriber does become a co-owner of Spyker (sb, Dutch). The roles of customers and share holders become similar. Especially for brands for whom a long term relation is relevant, as in extreme is the case for coaching brands, ownership will be in consumers' hands. For cars this will be less relevant, but this example shows that ownership of companies is no longer just reserved for third parties through stock exchange for example. People who feel involved with a brand will own it.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

British cosmetics brand Elave has made a video clip for her campaign nothing-to-hide in which she explains how her products work. As the production processes as well as the ingredients are completely in balance with nature, Elave has "nothing to hide", and so all people in this clip are fully naked. Even the CEO of the company, 38-year old Joanna Gardiner, has a (minor) part in the clip. As a result of this, every visitor of the web site has to confirm to be older than 18 (mf, Dutch). When brands can't reach consumers any more through mass communication media, they need to find ways to use consumers to spread the word. One way to get attention is to pass moral limits. This viral clearly succeeded in getting that attention.

Google has created a mobile version of the Google Calendar, which has been optimized for the small mobile display (dc, Dutch). Brands are getting ready to be reached through every possible display: very tiny, a little bit bigger, PC size, TV size, or life-size holographic projection. All possible displays however enter one and the same world. The difference is in the size: it is like peeping through a keyhole, or open the door wide and walk right in. We see or experience virtual 3D brand worlds in which we are welcomed by the virtual brand agents. But first we need to make sure that the different displays link up to each other. This is a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Brand worlds