At loket aangepast lezen (counter adapted reading; Dutch), a foundation founded by vereniging openbare bibliotheken (association of public libraries; Dutch), blind and partially blind people can order Braille books 24/7 by phone through a speech recognition application. The expansion of the accessibility of the library service to people with a visual limitation is, according to its founders, unique in the world.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The blind and partially blind will find the world a lot easier. The amount of companies that offers it’s information spoken will explode; after all, brands will enter a spoken dialogue. Currently they’re specifically ordering Braille books, but ordinary books can be read when they’re in the library, or even at home from their cell phone. Soon they’ll be able to wear glasses which only enlarge the letters they’re looking at, or glasses which automatically read what they’re looking at, reads the book in front of them, or just reads aloud without a book that you listen to directly and continue where you left off last time. No more need for a cd. Just say ‘tell me’.

But that doesn’t go for just the blind. Discoveries like these will offer people in illiterate countries unknown possibilities to develop themselves. Without being able to read or even learning to read And brands that facilitate them.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

Google, in honor of its 10-year anniversary, pulled out Google 2001. They're the oldest search results still available. In the passing years the logo has changed, but searching still happens in exactly the same way. Most of the sites found no longer exist.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Traditional brand thinking is based on building a consistent image. When the strategy changes, all the brand’s expressions have to chance. It was absolutely necessarily; people are always shown the brand in a flash and based on that a brand image is formed in people’s heads. However, the times have changed. For no reason, people can spend half an hour visiting a brand (virtually). Showing how you used to look, where you came from, what your origin is, that’s only powerful. It makes a brand authentic.

Tip for every brand: always save your old websites!

Tudou, the biggest Chinese video sharing site (comparable to YouTube), has started the online High Definition-streaming of 100,00 television series. Daily, a hundred Chinese tv broadcasting companies upload their episodes in High Definition to HD.Tudou.com.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Home entertainment coaching brands ensure that all content ever created is gathered together, or at least have access to it. YouTube-like sites can be entertaining, but before they actually do this they need a wide assortment, be available on every TV-screen and and furthermore have a detailed profile of the viewer and the friends of the viewer. This lets you at least see what your friends (and family or colleagues) watched yesterday. That does knock out the television broadcasting companies, however. This is a step in that direction.

MediaZoo is an online application that makes the user's music available from every location. The music library application is now slowly becoming complete Open Source, which means that music fans can build their own applications for the library. You can think of networking possibilities, such as profiles, message and commenting systems, or an intelligent recommendation system for songs. MediaZoo already offers a few functions, such as uploading music, but also the playing and sharing (with a limited amount of friends) of songs. The service hopes to become the largest library of rights-free music.

Users can, if desired, add their rights-free music to 'The Zoo'. A payment or donation system with which users can support musicians is another example of a possible feature that could be developed by the community. In the meantime MediaZoo Language Localisation, a subproject of the MediaZoo Open Source-project, has already started. This should make the service available in several languages.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

All brands are going through similar situations. All brands are involving their community, are experiencing a brand coming out, after which the direction won’t be with the head office, but with the people. They’ll all enter the dialogue. But brands with a symbolic function, like music brands, can also become very strong in a friends network (more so than, say, an insurance brand). This is a nice example of a brand that’s allowed to start with a clean slate and does it completely differently from the start.

Related trends

• Brand coming out

Glubble facilitates social contacts between a family. Every family has its own family site for photos, a shared calendar can be managed for nice and less nice activities (such as the dentist), birthdays of family members, or keep each other up-to-date about what they're doing at a specific time. Furthermore parents can limit the amount of possible websites their child could visit.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Social coaching brands help with the maintenance of relationships with other people. Where in the first phase we kept phone numbers in our phone, in the second phase entered the type of relationship, this type of brand will emphasize the difference in relationships. Glubble currently emphasizes families, but when this will soon be connected to other families (for example at what time little Emily has to be home after playing with a friend), it’ll also facilitate other types of relationships. Soon we’ll be able to ‘call’ through this type of brand and the spoken intention in our conversation (‘so tonight we’ll meet at 8 pm’) be analyzed immediately, registered in the agenda to remind us of this at a quarter to eight. Not yet, but later. It’s all happening step by step.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Through the renewed Windows Live Photo Gallery people can't just group their photos based on date or location, but also by people. They can also edit the photos. For example, you can make the photo black and white with a single click of the mouse and you can rotate the photos in any angle.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brand will start to recognize the images around us to advertise with them. Brands that specialize in social contact between people, that facilitate with personal contact (such as (Windows) Live, a social coaching brand in the making), also recognize our friends. From their photograph, but later also by their voice, their walk or their behavior. In the long term, even better than we can recognize them ourselves. This is a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Google has found a way to visualize search results in videos. For example, someone searching for 'Health' will receive a line under the (YouTube) video with markers when the person says the word 'health'. This is known to Google as Gaudi.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Currently Google responds to our typed query, soon we can sit behind our tv and ask ‘health’. And after that ‘When was that guy talking about health?’ And even later it’ll search for all kinds of synonyms. It goes on and on. Not just for Google, but for all brands. We’ll be able to ask such questions of all brands. Like it’s always been the most normal thing on the planet. For now we’re very busy with reaction properly to the clicking and typing of our customers, but in the meantime technology is a few steps ahead of us.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

During the International Day of Peace, War Child Netherlands organized a virtual Peace March on the online community Habbo. The goal of the march was to make the youth stop to think about war and to call on them to support the necessity of peace. The peace march was part of the Global Peace Gathering organized by War Child and Habbo in 32 countries. Beside the Peace March Habbos could sign a Peace Petition by War Child with which they could show their support.

During the march the visitors of Habbo, the so-called Habbos, made a communal trip through different virtual rooms. They were accompanied by several youths from Uganda, which visited the online world from a refuge camp.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The Habbo world knows no country borders, just as the whole virtual world doesn’t know them. As a result, people will act more like world citizens, starting with the smallest amongst us. This generation, which will control the world in 2050 will view other cultures completely differently from previous generations. And they’ll also rule the world differently.

Through VandaagOpStap (Dutch) people can look for activities and events that are happening today. With a database of over 9000 activities VandaagOpStap is the biggest outings-website of the Netherlands. People can select from 11 categories, amongst which are 'active entertainment', 'special buildings', 'day outings', 'art and culture', 'music'. Those contain about 10 subcategories. It's also possible to search using region and city. When selecting an event, the website also displays nearby restaurants.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how VandaagOpStap is a coaching brand in the making, a coaching brand that entertains us outside our doors, possibly named a personal outdoor brand. That starts with completeness in the categories and VandaagOpStap is well on its way.

Furthermore it shows how the network economy is developing. We used to deal with guides, with as most extreme example the theater guides where we had to book half a year in advance. In the network economy everything happens realtime: the moment we feel like doing something, a personal outdoor brand can immediately sort all possibilities that suit our profile, only possibilities that are truly possible. Furthermore coaching brands will also take along the diaries of friends; after all you rarely go alone. Personal outdoor brands make sure that you always have something fun to do outside your doorstep. That makes the whole world more spontaneous. More fun, if you will.

Related trends

• Coaching brands
• Network economy

Users of social network MySpace can allow the site to watch along through the webcam and publish the resulting movie immediately. The big difference is that people don't first have to save the movie and then upload it.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands are beginning to understand the consumer’s remark of ‘would you look at that!’. Currently with MySpace, but soon you can show an insurance company what the damage is immediately, directly from your cell phone’; your health coaching brand can see the wound immediately after falling or the plumber can see the situation in your kitchen cupboard. Furthermore the brand can also remember this video-conference and analyze it automatically. It’s progressing step by step and MySpace is a pioneer in that area.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

The new iTunes automatically creates playlists based on your own music collection. After selecting a number, you need to press the 'genius' button and then iTunes will automatically select similar songs. You can also give Genius the command to recommend music you don't own yet. Then you can buy those.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how music coaching brands are brought to life. They’re specialists in all kinds of music ever created and can make recommendations. Soon iTunes will look at you literally (!), gauge your mood, and start the music. No whining about buying, but of course you do have to pay for this added value. And if you’re truly touched, iTunes will be able to recommend a concert. This is how iTunes will become a music buddy that travels everywhere with you.

Marillion offers its music for free in exchange for email address, country and city. By entering this, you can download their newest album Happiness Is the Road from p2p-network Musicglue. You can also choose not to enter an information and pay for the album.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Owning music will disappear as a concept. It’ll be all about listening to music and it’ll be the trick to select the right music at the right time. That’ll be the added value for the digital troubadour. That’ll be the added value we’ll start to pay for. Popbands, transaction brands compared to the music coaching brands, offer their music for free. It helps them make contact with the public so that they can build up a fanbase and earn money from concerts and merchandising. Popbands are building a brandculture around themselves, a brand with a symbolic function, because your music choice is a part of your identity which is formed and anchored early on in your life. Popbands first have to know who they’re dealing with and Marillion is taking a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

Lisa, the brand agent of Rabo Mobiel (Rabo Mobile; Dutch), now also listens to open questions asked by the consumer. Whoever calls customer services (0900-9890) will immediately get to speak to Lisa. With the help of open question speech recognition Lisa can bring them into contact with the most suitable person of customer support. If they're not immediately available, customers won't need to stay on hold, but will be called back. That increases the positive customer experiences and efficiency of customer services.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

And again the dialogue is shaped a little further. Lisa’s already answering simple questions, but she’ll be able to handle more and more complex questions. Currently Rabo Mobiel still searches for a specialist in the call center, but soon the questions will become so specialistic that Lisa will connect you with the specialist of Rabo Mobiel in the Netherlands and then in Europe and eventually in the world. We manage to automate ever more communication; ever more interesting is the work that’s left.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

In the London-based restaurant Inamo you can order food from your table, play games with other people in the restaurant, pay or order a cab. A beamer which projects images onto the black table surfaces makes it possible and through the use of a mouse visitors can browse through the menu and view images of the food. After placing your order you can view how your food is prepared using the 'chef cam'.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Two structural developments are hiding in this example. Firstly this kind of development will lead to the creation of a next generation entertainment place where you can also eat. Like arcades arose from technology, technology in the restaurant kitchen will develop. Furthermore the delivery of additional service will definitely be given a shot. Soon automatic payment will be so smoothly arranged that we won’t even check the receipt. We’ll be recognized when we enter, get the suggestion of the month tailored to our wants, and we’ll just as easily walk outside again and money will be arranged for us. Also in large restaurants, also in other branches of those restaurants. That’s how the dialogue can bind people to the (restaurant)brand and this is an example of a development in that direction.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

Wehkamp.nl, a Dutch e-commerce, now lets consumers react to press releases sent by the company. Then the company keeps a close eye on the reactions. For example, the reaction to the press release Nieuw Magazine Wehkamp.nl (New Magazine Wehkamp.nl; Dutch):

Marjolein:

Nice the September magazines.
Especialy page 31, that's all wrong!
nr.7 is a belt. A comparable pair of pants of "Liefs van Bo" is slightly more expensive.
Only nr.2 and 8 are correct.
How're things for the rest of the magazine?

To which Wehkamp (Dennis Hendriksen) responded:

Firstly, thank you for your response. It's indeed true that two article numbers were switched in the magazine (namely: nr. 6 and 7, page 31). De error has our attention. Internally we'll be looking for a solution to guarantee the ease of ordering.

Kind regards,
Dennis Hendriksen
Wehkamp.nl

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands are experiencing a brand coming out: they’re becoming an ultimate cooperation form between people. You’ve got people in the core, who work on it all day, people who do something some of the time (call it ‘part-time working’ for now), people who sometimes think along and people who spend most of their lives simply taking.

Sending a press release is part of PR, part of Public Relations, part of maintaining relationships with the public. In practice that always means: keeping in contact with the press. Entering the dialogue. And that can be seen beautifully here.

In a next step, by the by, people need to be logged in so that Wehkamp.nl (in this case) can see directly which delivery it’s about and take personal action, like calling. Perhaps this person would be willing to proofread next time. And so we’re going forward step by slow step.

Eduhub is a new Dutch comparison site which compares educational courses for private schools. At its start the site contained 265 providers of unsubsidized training courses. The commercial initiatives of universities/colleges also fall under this. Over a hundred of these have a log-in code which allows them to enter the courses they offer manually. Currently, this results in an overview of 3,200 courses. Mentioning courses is free, but providers have to pay if they also want to receive leads. In concrete terms that means people's requests for brochures. Eduhub earns €5 if someone requests a brochure for a €500 course and €50 for one of €5000. It's a fixed percentage, no matter what the popularity of the sections or specific courses.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Career coaching brands guide us with our personal development. Which books should we read? Which events should we go to? Which blogs should we follow? Which job should I choose? What suits me anyway? What makes me happy? How do I get the best out of myself? With the creation of this type of brad it’s important to first chart the available offer, worldwide, in great detail. Eduhub has made a start and can grow into a career coaching brand.

Next steps are then: Which education should I choose now? Which course suits which job? Which courses are most suited for my way of learning? Options aplenty.

Related trends

• Coaching brands