Through Best4c (Best for Chart) people now can draw diagrams directly on websites, without having to download software (c2). The web becomes simpler and simpler. In the future we will just call what we want to do, and we can directly replace and/or enlarge files through our fingers. There is no software installation or a mouse involved any more. At the moment, we see more and more software move to the web. This is an example of that.

English company Goldstriker makes a golden version of every product. Lighters, pens, or mobile phones: Goldstriker makes the golden edition. They even gild certain car parts. They now also made a golden edition of Apple iPhone, as the first company in the world (mc). Brands with a symbolic function, brands that carry products to carry on or against the body, come in great designs. As long as the technology is new, the product often still has a technical appearance. The first eye glasses witnessed that, but also the first shoes, the very first laptops, or the first mobile phone. Apple now already has a product you can be seen with, but Goldstriker takes it a step further with this golden version. Of all technology to be carried on the body, we can expect design versions. Design VR glasse, to name an example.

Pest control company Rentokil sends its clients a text message when a mouse is caught (mc, Dutch). All (brand)products will be connected, with each other and with the virtual world. To start with all products operated through plugs or batteries. Other products will follow. Through these links completely new applications evolve. Through the link, the brand manufacturer stays in touch with her products and their owners forever. So they can add more value to the lives of these people. This is a great example.

Chinese civilians show the practice of child slaves through American video sharing site YouTube.This English video, named 'Child slaves, Shanxi China' is placed by somebody using the name daughterofchina. From a western point of view, it is horrible to see what happens (vc).

Nowadays, Fair Trade is a popular principle. Naomi Klein's book 'No Logo' from 2000 initiated this. Just before that, the term 'company behind the brands' had come up. Companies experience a brand coming out: they operate more open and transparent. English videos will make the western consumer more aware of the welfare of people who produce their products at the other side of the world. People who after all also just want to live a happy life, like we all want. In a next step, personal environment brands will show us at the purchase how something has been produced. In the end this will lead to a more balanced world in which richness, welfare and happiness is for everyone. This however will take at least a (couple of) generation(s). It is a long process which unfortunately will take lots of victims first.

Related trends

• Brand coming out

A research team of the Keio University Biomedical Engineering Laboratory has developed a BCI (brain-computer interface) which makes it possible for users to walk the streets of virtual world Second Life purely based on imagination. Thinking of arms, head or feet, the avatar walks like the user imagines (ab).

People think visually, people think 3D. We have know this for thousands of years: there are all kinds of (oldO meditation techniques using this insight. Through this type of techniques we will now also get a much better scientific insight in the way people think. Not just for the physical orientation of people in a physical space, but also for the orientation of abstract concepts like 'relationships', 'politics', or 'brands'. This will lead to people finding new spirituality. But it will take a while before we will see the first mass products using these insights and possibilities.

The biggest newspaper in Singapore, the Straits Times, offers TV through video phone. It can also be tested from abroad. You call (+65)64039838 and you see a simple menu with the choice between City news and Crime news, both offering four video clips which start directly (mb, Dutch).

We call our favorite brands like we call our favorite contacts. We get them on demand. Later we will be recognized, and we simply go through a personalized menu. Supported by audio, text, or video. And if we have questions, the brand agent appears, or we connect to a real colleague. We pay per minute. It is just a service. This is how simple it can be.

Through Japanese Megane Top you can fit glasses with your mobile phone (ab). Now glasses, in the future all kinds of clothes. If you then see somebody wearing a jacket, shoes, or skirt you really like, you just point your mobile phone at it. Your fashion coaching brand then appears, who estimates if these clothes will look good on you, asks what color you would like, gives advice about combining these clothes with your existing ones, can say if you can get it somewhere in the neighborhood, and can directly reserve it for you, or order it and have it delivered at your doorstep if you like. This development is part of that.

On this interactive floor people can play a soccer game. To make it clear: the ball too is in the floor (through arjan at mm). This type of floors offers endless possibilities for retailers, like the video at EyeClick's site shows. In the end it again is a screen providing us access to the virtual world. A floor that can help us personally. That can show us where to go if we search something or somebody, or if we want to meet somebody. I foresee bars with floors built up with this type of displays, containing personal profiles of all its visitors. That would tremendously enrich flirting.

Social network MySpace makes it possible to call somebody directly from a profile page, through telephone service Skype (cz). Social coaching brands - MySpace could develop to be such a brand - facilitate mutual contact. Asynchronously by leaving text, voice or image messages in 'boxes' or on 'pages'. Or synchronously through text, voice or image by chatting or calling. If a company can't deliver a certain type of service itself, it will be purchases, which in this case happens with Skype. In the end MySpace will probably want to be in control of the communication between its users. Now its own messenger competes with the chat possibilities in Skype. That will only be a matter of time.

In South-Korea it is now possible to scan a product with the mobile phone, and directly get a link or information. You can scan a milk container for example, and see its history (td). Thus brands and consumers get into dialogues, with the product as the topic of conversation. Now still a bit dry, in the future we will see complete brand worlds the moment we aim our mobile phone at a product. And if we have questions about a product, we can ask the brand agent, the artificial employee, who then appears. Just in spoken language. This is the beginning.

Related trends

• Brand worlds

Treinvizier shows trains, metros, and intercity trains real-time on the map (only in firefox now)(mb, Dutch). We imitate the real world as detailed as possible, and make sure that every change is visible. It was already possible to see planes, traffic information, and metro and tram stations, and now the moving trains have been added. Wherever the information comes from, mobility coaching brands will help us to get from A to B as fast, safe, or cheap as possible. For that to happen all information has to be available, and we're getting one step closer to that situation every time.

Auction site eBay has started Neighborhoods, groups in which users can unite. The first groups have been formed around coffee, the iPhone, and dogs (mf, Dutch). Thus eBay further develops itself as a social coaching brand: a brand which facilitates mutual contact, including transactions.

Viewdl recognizes faces in videos, accurate by the second. The first partner is Reuters, who has provided 600 hours of news video. In this video for example Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende can be found (mf, Dutch). Searching in video and audio in the future will be as simple as searching in text nowadays. We will be just be able to say 'all vacation videos I'm in with John', or 'all remarks Bush has made about taxes in 2006', or 'all movies in which Lisa has a minor part'. In the future we will only have to say something, and we get it on demand. It will be as simple as that.

British magazine The Economist is going to give away part of its contents to political web loggers, even before the complete content is made available online. The Economist has selected the one hundred most influential political web logs for this purpose (mf, Dutch). Brands learn to think tribal, they learn how different people with different characteristics can have different roles in spreading the word. In this case The Economist targets Mavens, a certain type of people, one or two per cent of the people at the most, who are actively involved in a certain subject (here: politics), and want to be the first to know everything of that subject. The Economist here fills in an enormous desire of knowledge. More on Mavens in this great book of Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point.

Related trends

• Tribal

Videos of video sharing site YouTube now also can be placed on location in Google Earth. At Maui for example videos can be seen about surfing, snorkeling, and tropical fish, while at the Mont Blanc you see ski videos from the Alps (dc, Dutch). Thus the virtual world comes slowly into being. This way we can always relive an event, taken place at a certain moment in time. We can see it a year later. Fifteen years later. One thousand and five hundred years later. The massive registration of the world makes future reliving possible. Even branded experiences. This development is part of this.

Winston Churchill has said (among others at bq):

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.

And slowly the end of democracy comes closer, to make place for new forms of government in which civilians are the boss...

Related trends

• More involved