Electronic Arts will soon publish BoomBlox a Steven Spielberg game (dc, Dutch). The game industry has been bigger than the movie industry for years, but movies are still more visible. Soon movies will only be free trailers for games, for which we will pay even more. Talents from the movie world becoming active in the game world is an example of this.

Thanks to a built-in compass the map in the Nokia 6210 now automatically turns when a pedestrian turns the phone (see the video). (mc, Dutch). Reading maps is a problem for lots of people, so this will solve lots of problems. In the future we won't have to read a map at all. Then we just say where we want to go, get instructions through our ear plugs, and even see a street view projected in our glasses, with arrows pointing at what we should look at. This makes today's complex world a little easier for everyone.

E-Fitzone is a fitness center completely focused on interactive training. Apart from well-know movement games like the Nintendo Wii and Sony's EyeToy Kinetic there are lots of other games to play. This development perfectly fits in this era. We will be more and more challenged on an individual level. We will be able to learn certain sports without having been in the real environment. We will be personally coached without having a personal coach. We will play with other people from all over the world, form virtual teams, and compete against others. Against real or virtual people. Today's obesity, caused by too much media usage, will get a whole new perspective in tomorrow's world. By offering a series of experiences we can transform to be real top athletes in a certain field in the course of years. Or develop certain physical skills we would normally not be able to find a teacher for. With that, the experience economy in the long term will change into the transformation economy. It still has a long way to go but this is a nice start.

Related trends

• Experiences

Amazon.com from now on shows the total amount in your own currency. Not knowing the exact in your own currency proved to be a burden for international customers (em, Dutch). Brands start speaking the consumer's language. Every sales person knows it: use exactly the customer's words, his own languages, his own habits. Then you create real contact. This is no different for the automated dialogue. This step by Amazon is a logical one in this perspective. Soon any amount at any website, in any e-mail, in any chat dialogue, will automatically be shown in your own currency.

Dutch restaurant site Iens introduces a paid membership, a sort GoldMember, which offers extra possibilities (em, Dutch). It is the typical development of business models for coaching brands. First all service is free (for example gathering information about certain products or services), then more and more value is added. So much, that at some point we are willing to pay for it. After all, it adds value to our lives. Paid membership is one of the possibilities.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Dutch professional soccer club PSV sends HD images straight to its fans, without intervention of broadcasters. It is the first time a soccer team is doing this (pv, Dutch). The experience economy is only beginning.

In the new economy to come it is all about virtual experiences, experiences from a distance, experience we are willing to pay for (a lot). This is only an experiment. You could say PSV is building the third ring over the stadium. In a next step we will determine our own viewing perspective (from any corner you can think of), and the screen will follow whenever we turn our heads. We will hear the sounds 3D, and hear our (virtual) neighbor to our right yell. We can record our own comments, or tune in to any other person doing that. It will be easy to tune into older games, add virtual audience in empty stadiums, and even experience a game live, while it has already finished. And the real soccer lover can practice certain techniques himself, with his personal sports brand on his side. These will be experiences we'll never forget.

Related trends

• Experiences

MiraWorldTV brings all TV streams together (al). At this point in time the most important thing is to bring everything together. In other words, for home entertainment coaching brands to be: bring all games, all videos, all live-video together. Then it becomes critical to make very personal selections, start them, and bill them. On demand. Then brands really start adding value to the lives of consumers.

Dutch website for holiday homes and hotels WeekendjeWeg.nl ('A weekend away') provides directions for guests through a button 'Add to my TomTom' with every hotel. Soon it will be possible to add all hotels in one go (am, Dutch). Now we still have to actively transfer information, soon even our TomTom will be a (mobile) window to the virtual world. We then won't just have dialogues with the TomTom brand through this screen, but also with other brands. Like a Philips TV or a Dell monitor also provides access to the virtual world. Then the dialogue we started with WeekendjeWeg on a bigger screen will just continue on a smaller, mobile screen. Then we will be able to retrieve reviews and have them read to us on our mobile screen. And if we want to know how to get somewhere, TomTom's brand agent is there for us.

Mijnsein sends out an e-mail of text message just before an insurance contract is going to be extended (em, Dutch). Brands will soon be pro-active, and start thinking for consumers. So that finally you will have the feeling you are working with friends instead of brands that want to bind you through contracts. This will strengthen the emotional loyalty to brands tremendously.

Cloudspeakers brings music reviews of various sources together (em, Dutch). Thus music coaching brands come to life. Soon consumers will have chosen their own brand which brings all music together that has ever been made, in any language, in any country, by any artist, and combines it with reviews, concert tickets, karaoke, or only the vocal part to which you can make your own music. The art will be to make the difference in entertaining consumers musically. To be able to do that, brands will have to know the music someone really enjoys: they will have to deepen the relationships with their customers. For now the most important thing is still completeness: bring everything together so I don't have to search any more.

Martinair as the first airline provides its passengers with a travel guide for mobile phones (mc, Dutch). Thus travel coaching brands come to life. In this example the travel guide function is connected to an airline, soon new brands will watch all holiday moments during your life, including all moments of orientation, of booking, joy of preparation, return, and joy of looking back. They are the ultimate providers of this service and will be able to offer tailored information. The introduction of this travel guide adds to a new dynamic in the travel branch.

Business social network LinkedIn remembers and shows all e-mail addresses of an individual member. In the course of years people send each other invitations, whereby they sometimes use a different e-mail address, while they do link these invitations to a certain profile. Thus LinkedIn can build up a database of different e-mail addresses for every individual. The user then can choose what should be the primary address for communication between the brand LinkedIn and the user. Very smart.

All brands will soon do this. They don't just have one e-mail address of an individual consumer in their database, but also all associated e-mail addresses. So that if an e-mail address doesn't work any more, they can send a message to an alternative e-mail address. In these times, in which it is always harder to find new clients (or reach them using traditional channels), you have to give more attention to keeping existing customers. At this time, it is five times as expensive to get a new client as compared to keeping an existing client; this ratio will change for the worse in the years to come. This type of extensions of the database therefore will prove to be very profitable.

The Chatbot of KPN InternetPlusBellen's Helpdesk forwards calls to a real person if she doesn't know what to do with a question. The chat then continues like normal, only in a different window (cb). Chatbots will get better in understanding and answering consumers' questions. After that they will combine their knowledge with profiles, and chat bots (call them brand agents, call them virtual employees) will approach consumers pro-actively (if we allow them of course). And if we then have a really hard question, we will be forwarded to a specialist. Every brand will in the end be built in such a dialogue, and no longer in a monologue (how can I reach the consumer?). This is the hidden development here.

Leffe, a Belgian beer brand, lets you experience it. You're taken into the cellars can admire various aspects of Leffe. The Master Taster can also show you how to store this beer, how to pour it an how to drink it. And this in English, French and Dutch. In a next step we see people apparently speaking all languages. Not because a special kind of human has been found, but because technology allows humans to speak in this manner. Then Leffe can spread its rituals globally. And in the step after that the brand agent, or another brand representatives, can teach us how to perform these rituals ourselves by correcting us. This is how symbolic brands create a brand culture in worlds which have ample space for this. This is nice, but really just a beginning.

At Holidot.com all hotels, bed and breakfasts and holiday homes in Europe are lined up in 7 European languages. With this, it is the biggest, and also the first independent site making all hotel and holiday addresses visible. Travelers can publish their travel reports, which are shown uncensored, and users have the possibility to bookmark favorites, and share them. Accommodation owners (hotels, bed and breakfasts, holiday homes, camp sites, etc) can open their own mini website at Holidot.com for free (mb, Dutch). Thus another travel coaching brand comes to life. In first instance the most important phenomenon will be completeness in the domain, but in a next step it will be most important for us to really have the holidays of our lifetime, every year anew. The relationships with the consumer soon will be the most distinctive factor, but in order to get a relationship, brands will have to know what is out there in the market. We are building that knowledge right now.

Through Virtufit athletes can follow instructions at home for 2 euros per lesson (via ld, Dutch). Working out at home is the future in some way. First the screens will get much bigger, we will get light and wind effects, and a brand agent will react to your movements on behalf of the sports program, and then motivate you to do better. Better than last time you did it: you will get your own last performance projected, or even your friends. Earlier or later the virtual world will get the best out of the physical human being. This however is only a very small start.