Dutch price comparison site Beslist.nl launches a selection wizard that allows people to make a preselection out of the overwhelming offers of today. Especially for comparing household goods, computers and electronic devices this function is extremely useful.

Take for instance the digital camera. There are at least 2,500 digital cameras on Beslist.nl. Through the product selection wizard, the consumer enters their demands step by step. Some of the choices that can be set are brand, cameratype and the effective resolution. With a filter set for, for example, 10 million pixels, mirror reflex camera and an image stabilizer only thirteen models are left. That's doable. Then the consumer can make a definitive choice based on price, product reviews by experts and consumers and such store specifications as availability, payment options and certifications.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Coaching brands help you to make a choice between all products, services and experiences. It starts with a complete overview (show me everything that’s available) and in a next step: help me make a choice. Afterwards our personal experiences and those of our friends will be taken into account. Then it’ll get truly good. This is a nice step.

Related trends

• Experiences
• Coaching brands

Wherigo is Groundspeak's newest on GPS-based activity. Groundspeak has made geocoaching into a worldwide phenomena. With Wherigo (pronounced "Where I Go") people can make and play adventure games, historical trips or other innovative games set in the real world. On connected GPS devices people can look at location, terrain, difficulty, hints and descriptions. One example is the Penguin game which starts in the Woodland Park Zoo, Washington DC, US and lasts two hours.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The experience economy takes places largely in the virtual world. Largely, because a part also takes place in the physical world. This is a nice example of this. Soon we’ll be able to practice at home in a virtual environment and make mistakes, as preparation for the real experience. WhereIGo is taking a nice step in this direction.

Related trends

• Experiences

At Capricorn Computerservices in Den Hoorn (South-Holland) customers can order antivirus-software through an interactive shopping window. The screen is projected onto the window and fingers are detected with special foil. With the created interactivity interested parties can also order software outside of opening hours. The software will then be delivered through email.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands will react to consumers, enter the dialogue, through all possible screens. Not just through an iPhone, an abri or a navigational system, but (especially) also through one’s own physical media. This is a nice example.

Hotel booking site Hotels.com has launched an application for the iPhone that allows users to search for hotels in their area (which uses the built in GPS module), sort them (on price, rating, amount of stars, names or hotel.com picks) and book a room.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Coaching brands personalize their enormous knowledge in a specific area and then use it within the context of the individual. Whether it’s about hotels, stores, ice cream cones, a bicycle repair man or a doctor, your coaching brands always have a solution. Hotel.com is taking nice steps in that direction.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Through Checkout, an application for the Apple iPhone, people can check prices immediately (online or in the neighborhood), read reviews or visit an online store to order there. This is done by entering a product's barcode.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This will change shopping behavior quite noticeably. If you know what you want, you just want the cheapest price. If you don’t know what you want, then maybe you want advice on or offline. You’ll pay for that. And maybe you’d like to try the product first, or hold it (like in a physical store); you’ll pay for that too. I’m talking about a shopping mall with a huge assortment that stocks in any case the products you’re considering buying, maybe brought forward especially for you. That’s a totally different concept of ‘stores’ where the retailer determines what’s on offer like we have currently.

The International Olympic Comitee, the IOC, will broadcast its own images of the Olympics in Beijing via YouTube. In countries where the television rights haven't been sold and in countries where those rights haven't been sold exclusively, the IOC will takeover the role of broadcaster. The games' organization won't have to make deals with television broadcasting companies because it'll place the images directly on the internet. No full sports competitions will be offered, but solely summaries and highlights. Inhabitants of 77 countries (such as Afghanistan and Ethiopia, but also Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Thailand) will profit from this move.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

And so the media landscape is slowly taking shape. All brands are building brand worlds where they have high quality interaction, dialogue, with the consumer. The time of programming the consumer’s television-evening is slowly ending. Currently for 77 countries only, but soon for all of them. We’ll start paying the IOC for its content—that’s also part of the development—but will be given an experience we’ll never forget in return, it’ll put every previous television broadcast to shame. It’ll become the trick to select the right experiences and for that home entertainment coaching brands will be at our side. This is how everything correlates with one another, this is how a wholly different world is created, one in which the consumer is central.

Related trends

• Brand worlds

The Dutch recruitment agency Netwerven puts the GPS-location of recruiters on Google Maps. With this candidates can address the recruiter directly if they happen to be in the neighborhood. It's also possible for the candidate to make his or her position known to the recruiter.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

All information, even real-time information, is being unlocked and used by brands where it’s useful to do so. In this case it could significantly reduce traveling time, so this works efficiently and furthermore it can increase effectiveness by ensuring that it’s relatively easy to have ad hoc and short personal contact. Currently this is true for recruiters, but soon it’ll go for all people who work or consume. It shows how the network economy is establishing itself and how brands use it.

Related trends

• Network economy

The Dutch internet provider KPN has started a webcareteam: a specialist group of people who watch forums and blogs and reacts where needed. This is intended to keep information accurate.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands are experiencing a brand coming out where they integrate fully with society; they become a natural part of it. This is an example.

Related trends

• Brand coming out

Google Maps now also shows pedestrians how to walk from point A to B. (Dutch) One of the options is to avoid hills as much as possible.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how mobility coaching brands are brought to life; they help you from point to B through any possible means. Soon you’ll hear exactly how to walk through an ear-piece. You’ll hear where to take the subway (that’s been paid already) to end up at a rental car with which you can leave the city quickly and reach your next destination. This is a small step in that direction.

Readers of the American newspaper the New York Times will get a special frame on the technology and business pages. In this frame they'll be offered a special selection based on their LinkedIn profile. (LinkedIn is a social network for business professionals.) Members that are active in the energy sector will for instance receive relevant news from the energy market. Besides that it is also possible to share the news from the New York Times with LinkedIn contacts or to start a discussion with people from the user's personal network.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

People are more involved with the world in which they live, extremely involved in the lives of their family and friends, involves with their neighborhood, involved with their town, slightly less involved with their state and even less with country’s and world politics. Of the first they want to know everything, of the last just the headlines and between those a bridge. By personalizing the news the NY Times is a step closer to this. After this all sources will get their turn, different opinions will get their turn, or we can even create our own news. Then a newspaper (call it an example of ‘the media’) will no longer determine what the news is, but the people. The NY Times facilitates that and this is a good step in that direction.

Related trends

• More involved

The popular Dutch website Buienrader (Showerradar) is now also available for the iPhone through a special application. (demo).

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands will communicate interactively, go into dialogue interactively, through all possible screens. At first these were computer screens, but now cell phones and iPhone screens are becoming more common. The navigational system, e-paper and especially the television will soon follow. It’ll become a trick to recognize a person through each screen and pursue the dialogue through that next screen, with different properties.

TechCrunch, the biggest techweblog, will develop a larger version of the iPhone with its readers. The device has to meet three criteria: thin, simple and cheap. Internet is central, so the device only has to run Linux and Firefox. Besides a large touch screen it'll only have an on/off button, wifi and a battery. All for the price of about two hundred dollars.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Slowly all products will become open source. It’s about adding value to people’s live by others; it’s the next step in cooperation between people. The closed concept of companies in an office building was needed in the mass-production and mass-communication era, but this phase is coming to an end. Brands that survive are experiencing a brand coming out. This is a nice example.

Related trends

• Brand coming out

When one looks up a route, Dutch Routesite Routenet automatically calculates the actual fuel costs based on the type of car and fuel used. By entering the car's license plate number the model of the car, the fuel consumption and the actual fuel prices are looked up. Based on that Routenet calculates the cost.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Mobility coaching brands help you get from A to B using conditions you’ve set yourself. All possible information will be used for this. At first it was just about the roads, but now we’re seeing the use of estimated traveling times or even actual traveling times more and more often, now the costs are also added to the list. Soon costs will be weighted against other forms of transport, desired comfort and, on top of that, globally. This is how mobility coaching brands ensure that you can reach any destination on earth using your personal preferences. Routenet takes another step in that direction.

The Dutch living concept Stay or Go calls the members of its community on Grohe Rainshowers to test a special kind of shower head. This was sent to the members through email. By clicking the link in the email a personal page is created where the users only need to add their zip code. The rest is already filled out and users can then click 'send'. That's all you need to do to sign up. Then Grohe selects people based on their profile, including their zip code.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands that have access to the consumer (coaching brands, Stay or Go a home coaching brand in the making) catalogue the demand in name of the consumer. The testing of products is a part of this. This time Stay or Go is making a general call (or was it because I once said I wasn’t happy with my bathroom?), soon it’ll be able to select the consumers open to this kind of thing accurately.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

The Dutch police (Politie Hollands Midden, in this case (Dutch)) places recordings of security cameras on YouTube with the request to react. For example, a video of a robbery in Leiden on June 12th, 2008.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Our world will eventually (think 2050) be guarded by video cameras (sensors) and robots. In this world too the added value of the police is to protect us: to uphold the rules we’ve agreed to obey so that we can move about the earth in freedom and safety. And just like in any other organization that needs to be as effective and efficient as possible. This is a step towards speeding up the IDing of people. In this example a hood is still hiding the majority of the image, but soon we’ll be able to ID someone by their walk, the DNA on left coins, or by their voice.

PC Zapper groups together all watched videostreams of broadcasting companies, of Dutch video sharing sites or other video sources using Dutchcharts (Dutch). This way a Top 30 can be created. Videos can be clicked on and watched immediately.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Home entertainment coaching brands collect and group all available media from which a viewer, the consumer, can choose. Now all the Dutch video-offerings are being grouped, soon the whole international videos and then live-video will follow suit. How to choose from this overwhelming offer. This new type of brand will help us choose by building a profile of us and also by knowing what our friends are doing. First gathering up all the video-material. That’s difficult enough in 2008.