Through readmymood people can now add a flower to their website or web log, which automatically displays their mood. This is based on the word choice in the texts. My blog at the moment of writing has a high score on 'angry, sad, businesslike, and male', and less high on 'happy, cheerful, emotional, female, and in love'. Therefore a somewhat plain flower, which can be totally different tomorrow. That's why I keep a small archive of the flowers in the extended posting. The latest analysis can also be seen at the Readmymood site, and these often are much more colorful.

This development shows how we get better and better at the automatized reading of emotions. It already happened in 'text mining' and 'voice mining', based on which customer care centers can predict the behavior of consumers. Now it is also available for the consumers. Social coaching brands will assist us in anticipating the emotions of the other, and earlier or later they will be better at that than the average person. Maybe we will call that 'emotion mining'. A related development already is called 'facial coding'. This type of brands then will be essential for functioning in society. As essential as the phone is today. This development contributes to that.

Cinema owner Path now also offers the possibility to reserve films, watch trailers and see what movie is shown where, through your mobile phone. When you send the text message FILM to 4443 (in the Netherlands), Path Mobiel sends a link to an application which can be installed in one click (em, Dutch). Brands will be available on demand. Now we still have to send a text message. In the future we will call 'Path', and we will directly be able to ask Path our question while sitting in a restaurant: 'are there any good movies shown in the neighborhood within the next hour?' 'Good' then will be interpreted based on personal preferences, 'the neighborhood' is determined based on the mobile phone and your GPS location, and the system in itself will add: 'and which still have seats available.' Now still in an application, in the future it will be supported by the most important visualization of the brand: the brand agent. Thus, slowly but surely a real dialogue comes into being. This is a small step in that direction.

Related trends

• Brand visualization

Users of the new iPod Touch will automatically see an icon 'Starbucks' when they enter an outlet of this coffee chain. When they click the icon, they can see the latest play list, and directly download a song or album through online music store iTunes. This goes over the wireless network standard available at Starbucks, which is automatically recognized by iPod Touch (mf, Dutch). And thus iTunes further develops as a music coaching brand. Now just through iPod, later through any mobile device. Now you still have to download a play list, later iTunes will directly recognize the music you are listening too. Then you can say: 'that song they played at least three times that night! That song.' iTunes then always listens along, and can directly recall every auditive experience. Wherever in the world, no matter how long ago. This is a small step in that direction.

Google News now provides access to original press releases of press agencies. Among them are American press agency Associated Press (AP), French Agence France-Presse (AFP), British Press Association (PA), and Canadian Press (CP)(dc, Dutch). Now it is limited to a handful of countries, but this will lead to direct consumer access to all press releases that have ever been made. Thus the quality of web log postings will increase, as they can easily cite the original piece, and link to it. And the amount of postings will increase too. In the end news coaching brands will help us, based on our personal preferences, to make a selection of all news items available in text, audio, or video. Google News is a news coaching brand in development.

Music channel TMF starts the 'kweekvijver' (breeding ground). Here artists can upload their music and promote themselves. Through their activities they save credits for their own TV campaign or online campaign (mf, Dutch). This way music coaching brands develop more and more. This type of brands stimulate, facilitate, and distribute music. Music we will in the end hardly pay for. The most important function will then be creating a live experience in the physical world or the virtual world. That is what people will pay for. The rest is just promotion. The time in which artists could earn big status is over for good. Making music is going to be just like the other arts, and like before will be an activity by and for the people, which is really hard to make good money of.

iFashion is a virtual fashion store from the Shinsegae chain. At the iFashion site you can create your own avatar with your precise measures, have it try on your clothes online, and order them tailor-made. And not just that: the precise measures of your avatar can be stored on a personal card you can use as a standard for ordering clothes, for example through your mobile phone or through the computer (mf, Dutch). And thus the fashion retail branch is also taking new steps. Now you still have to measure yourself, later there will be all kinds of businesses in shopping streets who, on a commercial basis, will take your measurements and give you color and style advice. They will get a percentage over the clothes you buy, or you just pay a price for the service. Fashion coaching brands, iFashion might develop to be one, will help you anywhere in the world with new fashion advice, based on your earlier purchases, your personal profile, what you are going to do, where you are, what budget you have, and, very important, what your friends think of it. This is a big step in that direction.

Through Olllo people now can flirt on the spot. Through the website you make your own profile, and give your input as to what the person you are looking for should be like. There are matches for gender, age, length, fashion style, party type, and music taste. The moment you feel like contacting somebody in your neighborhood, you activate Olllo by sending a code to Olllo. If there are matches in your neighborhood (until max. 3 km), you receive a short profile. Through Ollo you can then send your match a text message, or get a more extended profile. Your mobile number is kept secret, only your nickname is visible. If you have activated Ollo, you regularly receive text messages with matches in your neighborhood. After 8 hours the service is disconnected automatically (mb, Dutch).

Thus a new function of social coaching brands slowly comes to life. Now through a text message, later through an extended (online) profile, so you can see who someone's friends are, and how he (or she) treats them. You can see what other people think of this person, and - even better - see what your (friends of) friends think of him or her. Social coaching brands in the future will facilitate making and maintaining personal contacts. The development of this function is a small step in that direction. Maybe Olllo will grow into a social coaching brand. Time will tell.

Through Simplify Media users can share and play each other's music play lists. With some extra software users can download and install, they can add friends, check their play lists and directly play them in iTunes. At the moment it is only available for iTunes, but the versions for WinAmp and Windows Media Player are on their way (mf, Dutch). Thus music coaching brands develop more and more. Now we can see the play lists, in the future we will also see the appreciation, we can review music we don't even have on our own PC, and we will automatically see what music our friends, family or colleagues liked. New music will be discovered quickly this way. A young band through play lists can conquer the whole world in a couple of days after making their music available online. This is a small step in that direction.

Belvilla is the first company in the travel branch to test an online 'reading aloud' function for visitors at the website. By clicking 'Lees Mij' (Read Me), a friendly female voice reads to you everything about the holiday villa you are looking at. In the test phase, only the descriptions of the holiday villas can be heard. Plans are to have the 'read aloud' function for all web content in the near future (cc, Dutch). Thus the spoken dialogue comes to life. Now the voice also plainly reads all impossible codes ("the 4 and 6 person villas BE-8421-01, type A/ BE-8421-02, type B/ BE-8421-07, type A comfort/ BE-8421-08, type B comfort, listen here), in the future the language will be completely tuned to us. Now still at the PC. In the future we will sit in the car and ask: "Hey Bella, I would like to go to France for a week. Is there something free from October 1st onwards?" And then you will hear some choices, you can select with your voice ("that one sounds good! Do you have something bigger too?"), and you can watch your selection at home on TV. Step by step it goes that direction.

New Dutch vacancy website Baneninbeeld.nl completely consists of filmed job advertisements. The films are made professionally (tm, Dutch). Brands start to communicate more visually. This fits with human nature: this is what humans are designed for. Over thousands of years we have bit by bit learned to use the written word. Now video is possible, so humans follow their natural motives: thinking in images. There are many more video examples to follow.

The Dutch Ministry of Waterways and Public Workes uses special cameras to register cars (through license plate registration) using highway A9 at least 3 times a week. This is a group of 12,000 drivers. These people have all been asked if they were interested in a special 'A9 accessible' pass. Three thousand of them said they would like to obtain one (rb, Dutch). Brands, even the Dutch government, will monitor the use of their products (the infrastructure in this case) to optimize their service on a personal level. Now privacy is still an issue, but in the future we will be able to state on our personal web page: yes, help me optimize the use. Then privacy all of a sudden becomes much less important. As long as the information is not shared with other parties. Very slowly it goes this direction.

Controversial music exchange service LimeWire gets a legal version. With this, users can legally download music for about 1 euro per song (dc, Dutch). This way a music coaching brand comes into being. At first, most important is to have a complete assortment, so there is no reason to find music in another place, and then the personal profile follows. LimeWire can have built the profile based on the illegal music downloads, and then give advice about music that can be downloaded legally. In the end, new artists will come who will sell their music cheaper, or even give it for free (and make money on concerts and merchandise), so there will be price competition between the various music coaching brands. The added value in the end will be the personal advice. This is a small step in that direction.

Dutch website Zoover.nl, a site with more than 300,000 vacation reviews, offers tour operators like D-Reizen the possibility to place facts, figures and reviews on their own website. Travel agencies can use the Zoover technology under their own label. Through this module they can for example send questionnaires through e-mail, to ask customers for their experiences after their vacation. The travel agencies this way can research general findings, but also has to ask their customers to leave a Zoover review when coming home (em, Dutch). This way the relationship between coaching brands and transaction brands slowly becomes clear. Zoover becomes the travel coaching brand, responsible for the contacts with the customer. And companies like tour operators, airlines and car rentals become transaction brands. Transaction brands which only through excellent achievements will survive in this landscape. This landscape in which the consumer dominates. This is very logical: after all, he is the one who pays. This is a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

At Amazon Fresh, part of Amazon.com, consumers now can order fresh food. At the moment as a try-out just in Seattle. Delivery is very flexible. Through 'DayBreak' products are delivered on the doorstep by early morning, through 'Daytime Delivery' they are delivered the next day in a 1-hour time slot chosen by the consumer, and through 'Local Pick-Up' consumers can pick up their order the same day (em, Dutch). Very slowly we start to also order our daily groceries online. However, it is very hard to break through existing patterns, and for people who have been grocery shopping for years and years it is hard to break through this pattern. But the last ten years a new generation has come into being that thinks and acts online completely. The teenagers from then are today's people in their twenties. That generation ask themselves why they would haul a case of beer themselves? And that generation now has money too. The delivery remains a challenge. Now it still takes a day, in the future we will receive our order within a couple of hours. 'Normal' grocery shopping stays, but gets a different meaning. This is a small step in that direction.

On the Dutch site Reisvrij.nl consumers can compile their own vacation based on the availability of hotels, airplane companies and car rentals. With this Reisvrij.nl is the first Dutch travel website with the so-called Dynamic Packaging technology. Their offer includes at least 300,000 accommodations, over 10,000 destinations plus the complete range of all airline companies, including lowcost airlines that leave from the Netherlands and the adjacent areas.
And this is how travel coaching brands are slowly formed. It starts with completeness. Then with personalization and then the social environment of the individual consumer will be involved. This is how brands with an enormous meaning for the consumer are created. This is again a step in that direction.

Compare Group, the mother company of product and price comparing site Vergelijk.nl, goes international. They were active in Belgium and Finland already; now extension to Germany and Spain is in sight. Poland, the Czech Republic and Sweden seem to be interesting as well. Over the last couple of years the company has invested in technology to be used in several countries, which can be adapted to local differences in for example product codes and specifications (em, Dutch). Comparing sites lay the foundation for coaching brands. They will grow world wide and thus be capable of comparing all products worldwide, real-time. The challenge will be to make the first selection which best suits the (even unspoken) wishes of the individual consumer. That exactly is what distinguishes coaching brands.

Related trends

• Coaching brands