Independer.nl, a Dutch price comparison site for complex services, has launched a blog. Starting today consumers, journalists, colleagues and other critics can give their (blunt) opinion of Independer.nl. The blog is also meant to make the vision and ideas of Independer.nl easily accessible to all those interested. All content in the form of newsletters, press releases and surveys produced by Independer.nl will be available on the blog. People will also be able to respond to all content. In this way Independer.nl hopes to contribute further to its transparency.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

And so every brand will start to operate completely transparently. Each press release will become a normal message. Each message can be responded to. Earlier Independer.nl has already responded extensively on reactions based on my posting on Molblog: Independer advises insurance companies (Dutch), for example, about the provisions that Independer.nl receives, or the discussion with a potential ex-employee. The size of the public, however, is limited to the public there and, given the large target group Independer.nl wants to reach, it’s far more logical for Independer.nl to offer transparency in its own environment.

This is how all brands are experiencing a brand coming out and furnish their environment in such a way that people feel comfortable in it. This is a nice example.

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• Brand coming out
• Brand worlds

Eye laser clinic VisionClinics (Dutch) uses a lot of images to explain its product. On a special part of the site potential clients can watch with others. Like this they'll see a few short videos regarding motivation, preparation, the treatment and the results. There are also a lot of photo material and text explanations available.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Human eyes are created to perceive images. Now that we’re given more and more opportunities to do this images will become the leading communication form. Currently relatively passively; we can look and click. Soon that image will react to us and we’ll get on-screen explanations to our questions: ‘how does such an eye operation work?’ and the movie starts. And if we want we can look at it from a completely different angle. Slowly, very slowly, text will disappear to the background and will make, through flat screens, space for 3D images. Soon only people who like to read will be doing this. 95% will be content with just images (and sound).

Related trends

• More 3D

On programmagemist.nl (Dutch), television broadcaster SBS (Dutch) doesn't show just the videocontent of its own broadcasting channels NET 5, SBS 6 and Veronica, but also of the Dutch public broadcasting channels and of the Dutch RTL. Beyond that ProgrammaGemist (MissedProgram) also has its own hyve, a page on Facebook, on YouTube and on Twitter.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

With the creation of home entertainment coaching brands, brands that entertain us after a day of hard work, it’s about completeness in the first instance: make sure you’ve access to everything. That step’s being taken here (in a limited capacity, but the intention is there). Then it’ll become an art to tailor the evening. What trusted relations (friends, family and colleagues) watched/did is of the utmost importance. With this too SBS is taking a cautious step. Slowly, very slowly, we’re discovering the models of the future together.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

With Kupuk it's possible to control your music system using your iPhone. This is because it creates a link between phones and music systems that could turn out to become very popular.
A Sonos music system (Dutch) is a special audio system that fills the missing link between files on the hard drive, internet radio and the speakers in the various rooms of the house. The core of the system is comprised of one or more 'zone players' which are wirelessly connected to one another. Then you can control each zone with a so-called 'controller. (I've such a system myself and it works great!) Now it's also possible to control the whole system with a 'normal' iPhone.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

All screens will be connected to one another and give you access to all information wherever you want it. In this case, for example, you turn your music on using the computer, turn up the volume with your controller and will turn it off with your iPhone when you walk out the door. And that’s only the beginning. Soon we’ll also be able to use the TV, mirrors or e-readers to control our music: each screen is connected to the virtual world and reacts to our finger movements. After that we only have to say which music we want to hear and after that the digital troubadour will feel exactly what we want. This is a step in that direction.

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• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion

Home shopping company Wehkamp sends an email to online shoppers who've put things in their shopping cart, but haven't finished the payment. In the email the products in the cart are brought to the consumer's attention again. The amount of leads with this email is almost four times as high as with conventional emails. With this case Wehkamp was given the silver EMMA Award, an email marketing award.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands get how to shape the automated dialogue more and more. In fact this is automating attention: pay attention to what someone’s doing. ‘Hey, you thought this was interesting, can I help you with it?’ The most normal thing in the world, but you do have to do it first. Wehkamp gets precisely how this works.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

Customers of 3dfoot.com can let their feet be scanned in stores. The data will be saved online. When you then come into the online store, you can call on your profile and try the shoes on virtually.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Fashion coaching brands advise you on the buying and maintenance of clothing. They do have to know everything about you. The form of your feet, your legs, your body. Which colors suit you, how you walk, how you move. And especially what your friends like. And what you’ll be doing. This is a first, but useful, step in the development of this type of brand.

Related trends

• More 3D

In its branch office in Herten, Rabobank Roermond offers a video connection to the main office in Roermond (video, Dutch). It's a national scoop. Under the name of Rabovision the system is supposed to ensure that the office branches in smaller villages can stay open longer.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how new working methods of brands, of companies, are shaped increasingly. On the one hand the most simple questions are handled through brand agents, on the other the questions that are left are getting more and more complex and need more and more specialist knowledge. The chance that someone is stationed in the neighborhood grows ever smaller and so video conferencing fits seamlessly into this picture. Core of the success is eye contact, something which is a huge difference with, for example, contact though a webcam where you get a top view of the person you’re speaking to. In the next step we’ll be doing this from home (when a camera is truly inside the screen, instead of on top of it), with multiple screens (like e-paper that you hold in your hand and is connected to the conversation), 24 hours a day, with national contacts and for some clients even abroad.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

Picasa, Google's photo site, now recognizes faces. If you add names to faces, Picasa will start to recognize patterns. If you add more photos, Picasa will start to suggest tags.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Picasa is a brand that lets you relive the past. Just like all the other brands that mean something to us, they also know our friends. Currently we have to tell them, but soon they’ll know so many people that they can recognize people purely based on our contact list. Maybe it’ll turn out that we’re in a picture with someone we haven’t seen for fifteen years and wouldn’t even recognize anymore. And then the live-interpretation will follow: we’ll be walking on the street, then brands will help us recognize people immediately. We’ll just hear it in our (invisible) ear piece. Never again ‘who was that again?’ And so we’re taking a step closer to the future every day.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

Kiesbeter.nl (Dutch) compares health care per complains. Instead of searching through the available offers, the user can choose from: respiration; allergies; bones; joints; muscles; genetics and chromosomes; mental health; genitalia; heart; arteries; blood and lymph; brains and nervous center; hormones; skin; mucous membrane and connective tissue; infections; cancer; throat, nose and ear; mouth and teeth, kidneys and urinary system; eyes and line of sight; accidents and poisonings; digestion]; metabolism; reproduction and pregnancy. Then those who treat these can be compared. Furthermore there's a medical encyclopedia that filters by age and gender. Men will get specific explanations and pictures of the male body and women of the female body.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Health coaching brands are getting a more solid shape. Currently with a simple generalization on age and gender, soon such a brand will keep a very detailed profile. That profile is connected to your medical file. Furthermore not just health care in your own country will be involved, but in the whole world. And a next step is guiding us in our health. A lot to do for now, but KiesBeter (ChooseBetter) is nicely on its way.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

On bungalowtrips.nl vacation goers can now, just like with hotels, rent a bungalow on any desired day. Until now bungalow parks have only offered vacations in predetermined periods, the so-called mid-weeks and mid-weekends. They hope to address primarily pensioners through this as pensioners aren't restricted to free weekends or vacations.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

We’re slowly switching to a network economy in which supply and demand are connected flexibly and in real-time. The offers per week or mid-week were typical thoughts of the old times: product and price had to be recorded in a leaflet after all. We’re slowly but surely saying goodbye to this kind of concept and this is a nice example.

Related trends

• Network economy

Qash (Dutch) offers you insight in your spending patterns by reading and analyzing the data of your various bank accounts, credit cards and/or savings accounts. Each transaction will automatically be given a label and through this categorization you'll know exactly where your money is going. On top of that Qash can give you ideas on where to save money. Cheaper subscriptions, for example.

ditismijndroombaan.nl, a new Dutch career site, lets people who are looking for a job describe in their own words what their ideal job would look like, enhanced by experience and education. The recruiter can then read the introductions for free, but the complete resume costs 19 euros.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how career coaching brands are slowly shaped in the network economy. In this economy an employee is considered as someone offering a service. And in the development of the demand-driven economy it’s important to first gather the available offers so that others can choose from it. Just like a hotel room: first you map all available rooms, look at their availability and within that the consumer can look. That also goes for people who can help you in the long run, call it ‘staff’. These too need to be mapped so that you can make a choice. That too is a part of the network economy and this is a nice example.

Related trends

• Coaching brands
• Network economy

HuizenZoeker.nl, a new Dutch housing site, collects the offers from the various other housing sites (Funda, Huislijn, Dimo, Vbo, Era, Remax, Makelaarsland, LMV, Garantiemakelaars) and combines them into a complete overview. For more information on a house one is referred to the site where the house was found. If a house is available on multiple sites, the consumer can choose which site they want to look at then.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

At this time, the creation of coaching brands is still all about completeness in the category: give me a site which lists everything. Only those sites will survive, only those brands will survive. Then it’ll become an art to offer added value. That’s the basis on which home coaching brands can be created.

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• Coaching brands

The American store chain Kohls, with 975 physical locations, launched a new line that's only for sale on Stardoll.com, a virtual meeting place for teenagers. Using Stardollars they can buy virtual clothes. In the first sixteen days the virtual shop attracted 2.2 million visitors and sold 1.8 million items. Goal is to familiarize kids with the clothes Kohl sells and seduce them to come into the physical store to buy clothes there.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Where the virtual world seems more and more really, eventually it’s all about clothing in the real world with it’s rich sensory experiences. By wearing our clothing virtually first people can give their uncertainty about their looks a place. If the environment approves the next step can be taking. Kolhs gets precisely how this works.

Business social network LinkedIn has started to allow registered users to hold group discussions.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how a serious form of online conferences is formed: people already know each other and can also bring in people from their social network. In a next step this kind of discussion will integrate with live discussions/chats to give the feeling of being in a real workshop through speech and images. Still not all physical sessions will be replaced.

The ultimate will be real workshops of course, because this is the only way to be stimulated by all your senses. Furthermore, the social obligation to remain seated allows you to create a bond between people that will never be feasible in the virtual world. But such a session would have to be incredibly special and not a lecture in the traditional sense. It’s like with a vacation: the more you get the impression through impressive images that you’re in a specific location, the more you get the feeling ‘I want that too!’

LinkedIn, as

• in Dutch

Business social network LinkedIn now has a special application for the iPhone. With this users can write a status update immediately, look up contacts or send them a message.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how coaching brands continue to be shaped. Now we’re getting pC functions on the cell phone. Soon we’ll be able to call those people (no need for a phone number, just click). We can automatically record conversations and let speech interpretation report it. And later, much later, our conversations will be analyzed (automatically!) For example, if we hold a sales conversation we’ll receive tips on how to do better. Which emotions we failed to register and kept talking. This allows this type of brand to grow into a coach. But first they should be always with us. That feels right.

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• Coaching brands