Delft University of Technology wants to make all its teaching materials available digitally, without charge. This applies for books and lecture notes as well as for tests and video recordings. The University will start this project in June. As rector Jacob Fokkema puts it: "the aim of this project is to contribute to a climate of open knowledge organizations, operating in global networks" (nu, Dutch). Brands become more open, and share their general information with everybody. Information becomes free, but whoever knows how to make information specific for individuals, who knows how to help select information individually, adds enormous value to peoples' lives. That exactly is what coaching brands will do. Opening up information is part of this social process of change.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Job site TotalJobs starts an online job fair, the so-called 'clickbeurs' (Dutch), in an environment that looks a lot like a Habbo Hotel (the populair chat world for children). Job hunters can walk the virtual fair as avatars, and they can talk to recruiters. 39 companies are present at the fair, for whom TotalJobs tries to recruit starters
(em, Dutch). Brands start 3D worlds and invite consumers in. Now it is still done through a separate site, later you will be welcomed by a virtual brand agent in your own 3D TotalJobs environment, and you can start a spoken dialogue with that brand agent. This is a small step in that direction.

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• More 3D

Route Mobiel continuously researches its customer satisfaction by sending an e-mail with questions after a customer has had damage. One of the questions is what type of car came out to help the customer. For an answer, the customer can click on pictures of these cars. In this we can see the move to visual communication. We read less, and communicate more and more through sounds and images, exactly what humans are made for. Now Route Mobiel still has its questions accompanied with written text, and has its customers click with the mouse. Later we will have a spoken dialogue with an artificial brand agent, and we'll point our fingers to the car that came out to help us. This is a small step in that direction.

In the video under this picture you can see a (very far, think of 2050) futuristic view on claytronics , being developed by the Carnegie Mellon University: a technology that imitates form at a distance. Like sound and vision are recorded by microphone and camera, are transported through electronic media and are played somewhere else, this technology does the same with form. It does that by having millions of microscopic balls changing shape and color dynamically. In this video we see a car which arises out of a bowl of balls, which then can be manually changed at the spot. More information below. Claytronics will have an enormous impact on the way brands will develop products. If a designer forms a product, it can arise at thousands of consumer tables at the same time, with all its possibilities and impossibilities. It will still take a very long time, but earlier or later this will throw marketing off its feet (again).

Microsoft is working on a technology in which a normal glass window acts as a mirror, an interactive display, and a photocopier at the same time. By simply holding a document against the window, it is directly copied to the screen, and we can manipulate it with our fingers. Every physical object gets its place in the virtual world. If it doesn't have one yet, we will place it ourselves. See also the video below.

Dinnersite.nl (Dutch) allows restaurant goes to see where restaurants are located using Google Maps. In the example you can see restaurants with a menu of over 40 euros in Amsterdam Central. Again a coaching brand which helps with outdoor entertainment is created. Soon we'll be able to reserve a seat using Dinnersite. Then Dinnersite will ask us for a review and we can start looking for good reviews. First in general, but then also reviews of our friends or friends of friends. And then Dinnersite (with or without a partner) will start to do the exact same thing for the restaurants in the rest of the world. Some sectors are further along than others, but catering too is slowly shaping itself into the coaching brand model. This is a step in that direction.

Amazon has taken over dpreview.com, a leading site about digital photography with excellent reviews of digital cameras. (dc, Dutch). In the future brands will more often unite people. By this take-over, Amazon ties people to itself. The first step will be to integrate the accounts of the two companies. Amazon will make sure you get the product you want. If you write a review, Amazon knows for sure you physically have the product, which makes your review even more valuable. This is a step in that direction.

Philips announced its laboratories have succeeded in making a wafer-thin, bendable display in color. This electronic paper doesn't use energy any more after the page has been loaded (eg). In the end, the e-paper will be THE biggest threat for paper media. We will take it in our pocket to the train, the bathroom or the sunny beach on our vacation. Wireless connected to the internet, we'll have access to all possible content, to all our friends, to all possible brands. This medium will comply with the rules of the web, and not with the rules of paper media. It will take another couple of years, but earlier or later brands will have to cope with this.

The Australian University of Melbourne has developed a prototype under the name 'Jogging over Distance', in which two people who jog separately can yet hear each other at the distance they would be if they were jogging together. 3D audio simulation is used to make it seem like the slower jogger is really behind you, or the quicker jogger is in front of you. This could be very stimulating (tx). We imitate the physical world as good as we can so that we can experience anything we like at any place on earth. Alone, or with other people. This is an example of things really going in that direction.

The New York Times has published its enormous article archives. All pages with good titles, descriptions and a perfect internal linking structure. Brands are becoming more and more open. It's no longer about information (something which is more and more often easily available to everyone); there is no more lack of information and with that the economical value of information has disappeared. It's more and more often about the selection of information (and products, services, experiences) tailored to the individual. That's the field of coaching brands. In this way the New York Times can grow into a news coaching brand.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

MSNBC.com, the American news brand, introduced a pre-movie video game in which the audience directly interacts with the screen while live news is incorporated. It was a kind of arcade game consisting of a screen of little bars and a ball that can shoot the bars. The bars were filled with live news from msnbc.com while the ball was controlled by the collective actions of the audience. If people generally moved to the right more, the ball went to the right as well (bx) This way the media start to react to us. In the future we will see people in the theater live projected in the movie, or we see avatars in it that are not physically present, and we start carrying out orders in the city, where we meet audiences of other movie theaters. The movie then is only a side issue. And brands can offer this kind of content. We will call these 'branded experiences'. See the video clip.

About.com, part of The New York Times Company, buys American review site ConsumerSearch.com, a review site for 250 product categories. The take-over of ConsumerSearch.com is the third in a short time frame. Earlier About.com already took over uCompareHealthcare.com and CalorieCounter.com (em). This way About lays the foundation for coaching brands. By regrouping the brands around themes like health, home or transport, and introducing new brands for these, a logical place arises for consumers to find anything they are looking for. Dialogues can be started, and brand relationships will come into being. For example, once you have entered your weight, sex and age, all kinds of questions about health can be answered in a personal context, and issues can be taken care of quickly. About.com can develop a couple of very strong coaching brands. An interesting starting point.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Telecomvergelijker.nl, the biggest comparison site of telecommunication products in the Netherlands, will indicate how and by whom they are financed (mc, Dutch). Brands become more and more open and transparent. This is an example.

Dutch housing site Jaap.nl claims to show a bigger number of houses than Funda, the established brand in this area. Personal-brands-to-be now mainly focus on being complete. First in the Netherlands, then in surrounding countries and finally in all countries in the world. Relying on this completeness, the consumer can be served best, and value be added. This way Jaap can develop into a home coaching brand.This is a small step in that direction.

Social music platform Last.FM's users can now also watch music videos. Recording companies, among others EMI and Warner, will make about two thousand clips available online. And the amount will grow quickly, according to Last.fm. Their final goal is to have all music videos online that have ever been made (em, Dutch). This way music coaching brands gradually take shape. These brands give us auditive entertainment, and can show us the matching video if we wish. Or the song texts, the karaoke version, or the versions of the various instruments. And that for all music that has ever been made. This is a small step in that direction.

At Singapore Airport you can find some interactive shop-windows. When touching the window, a 'globe of films' is projected. You can control it by touching the window again. The globe can turn in any direction, and by touching one of the films on the globe, a video is started on a plasma TV next to it. (fc). This way the shop-window becomes more and more interactive, and our experiences become more intense. This is a simple but effective way to do that.