Using Wonga people in the UK can take short mini-loans online. Or, as they call it themselves, 'instant money' or 'cash on demand'. The applicant can determine the figure and span themselves and hear immediately if the loan is agreed to and, when it's accepted, you can expect the money on your account in a few minutes.

The loan vary between 50 and 200 pounds and have a maximum time span of 30 days. Wonga maintains an interest of 1% a day and £5,50 transaction costs per loan. To stimulate quick payback good borrowers get a higher score and as such more flexibility on future loans. This is how Wonga manages to reduce its debit costs. (demo)

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Everything will become real time, everything will become instantaneous. Later on, you’ll be able to do this via mobile phone, anywhere in the world. Furthermore your reputation will go up if you friends’ reputation is high. And furthermore you’ll be able to borrow money from your friends directly too. They can, for example, stipulate an amount they want to lend to friends with a good pay-back reputation. This is how Wonga will facilitate in a very fast, worldwide but reliable economy. A foundation you can build on. This is a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Network economy
• Coaching brands

Consulting organisation McKinney has turned searching into chatting. The opening screen starts with "Hello, It's Time for a New Conversation", then the questions appear on screen and we see the search box appear. In it is typed: "Ask us about us."

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how brands are starting to see what the dialogue really means. The search box is made central, the place where you as consumer, visitor, can ask questions. The art will be answering questions correctly and that works best if you recognize the consumer and continue the dialogue where you left it off. This is again a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

The Termina Kinshicho Fujiya Restaurant in Japan is experimenting with e-paper, here used as an electronic version of the menu. This allows, for example, the latest news to be shown while the order is prepared.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Paper will disappear and sometimes make space for e-paper. Currently as a separate device, but later on built into the table or the wall, in combination with many more screens to strengthen the experience and don’t disrupt like ads do. This is a nice example.

Related trends

• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion

LinkedIn, the professional social network, now lets you make notes that are only visible to you with your contacts.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This shows how social networks develop themselves. We’ve been able to look up people quickly for sometime, people keep their own contact data up to date and now we can make notes too. Later on, we can just call Lise, LinkedIn’s brand agent, and say “I want to call that guy I met in January during that CSP unplugged meeting.” After a short dialogue you’re put through. Nice and easy.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

Timboodle is a musical search engine with which you can find music on 'state of mind' or based on scraps of lyrics. For example you can search for 40 emotions, like melancholy, happy, subdued or excited. Beside that you can refine search queries by giving additional criteria, like genre, timbre, tempo, meter and kind of vocals.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

In a next step, Timboodle will measure your emotions. For example because webcams (which are available everywhere anyway) or microphones process image and sound with which you emotions can be guessed. And then Timboodle can jump in carefully with music tailored to that. This is how Timboodle can grow into a valuable brand in audio experiences. This is a start.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

Xing saw its profits rise with a good 10 million euros to 35.3 million. Most of the money comes from subscription feels. Paying customers have more rights, for example to search for people, than non-paying members. Xing has 550,000 paying customers, 188,000 more than a year ago. That's 8% of the total members.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Slowly we’re discovering the real business models of the virtual world, the long-promised internet business models. We start for free and then add continuously more value. At some point, it becomes so valuable that people gladly pay for it. And that’s exactly what we see happening here.

And at the same time, advertisements will start to disappear. That model comes from a completely different era and is well past its peak.

Related trends

• Experiences

Babies make all kinds of noises with which they send signals to the outside world. Princilla Dunstan offers parents training to recognize those sounds and to communicate with their babies. The training is based on years of research.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Now that we’re getting knowledge regarding baby sounds, in a next step we’ll start to recognize them automatically. Then we’ll be aided by our social coaching brands, which are specialized in communication, and we can hear what’s wrong very early on. Then we’ll be trained on the spot. That’s the next step.

Justin TV lets you watch soccer together through the computer and you can chat to give your commentary.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Currently through the computer, later through your TV and, for example, you mobile as keyboard. Currently with everyone, later you’ll connect this with your friends. Currently just text, later with images too. Currently just with a dialogue, but later you can make transactions too: for example, making a bet. Who bets that there’ll be a goal in the next two minutes? And the ToTo, for example could facilitate that. And for this kind of experience, we’ll just pay money. Everything exactly as I described it in my book five years ago; we’re still on track for 2015.

Related trends

• Experiences

Favicons, the minilogos used by companies, governments and personal brands are starting to move. Futurist Erwin Van Lun is taking the lead by putting six different creative animations on his website (=this website). This makes him the first in the world to make such a creative expression part of a personal brand strategy.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

As a brand futurist he adds: “Personal brands will benefit from using their own face as logo and favicon. Furthermore this kind of development fits with the trend in which brands bring their logo to life, the brand visualisation. I hope to inspire commercial, innovative non-profit organisations as well as personal brands with this modest innovation.”

Related trends

• Brand visualization

Audi is launching Australia's first ‘Holographic Virtual Assistant’. In the Audi Centre in Sydney, Rosebery, she'll appear life-size to send specific messages. Below the whole press release.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Currently it’s a speaking person, but later Audi’s brand agent will be especially good at listening. Then you’ll have met her at home first, through your computer, later the PC and even later also holographic, and the brand dialogue will continue through a brand agent like this lady. Like it’s the most normal thing in the world. This is a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

GE is making use of augmented reality and user microphone input on its campaign site smartgrid. Anyone who visits the site can print an A4 with a so-called 'marker', a simple black and white figure. Then you hold it up to the webcam and the image that you see will change on the spot of the marker. In this case, a landscape with wind turbines appears. If you start to blow into your microphone too you'll see the turbines turn and you'll hear the wind blowing.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Currently as a campaign site, but later we can hold any product of any brand in front of the webcam (or a mobile phone cam) and a new world will open for it. A world in which we can ask questions too. Currently we can blow; that’s fun. But later the GE brand agent, an artificial character that looks like a human, will appear and we can ask any question we want. This is a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Product activation
• Brand-dialogue

Google is letting consumers share their location with friends and family on Google Maps for Mobile under the name Google Latitude. To use it, you first need to download the newest version of Google Maps for Mobile and activate Latitude. Then you can invite your friends to share their location with you. When they accept the invitation you can see their location on a Google Maps for Mobile map after which you're given the opportunity to call, text or email them or even chat with them.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how even Google can grow into a social coaching brand. From Gmail and Google Talk contact lists are created in which Google can even see whom you have more and less contact with. Those contact lists can be used to look up acquaintances fast. Furthermore, with the Android phone, Google can see who’s calling and texting you. This way Google creeps very closely to your friends’ circle and can then offer more added value there.

Related trends

• Tribal

In the new version of Google Earth, oceans can be admired too. It's possible to look underwater, and thus look for the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench, and let yourself be guided by videos of National Geographic and the BBC or to look for shipwrecks. Furthermore it's also possible to look at the urbanization or the melting polar caps using historical images.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The framework to map the physical world in time and space completely is maturing nicely. Very soon we’ll be able to just walk through this 3D world, in the time we wish. Meet friends, make appointments, meet people, open stores, buy things. It’s all coming and it won’t take long now. Then it’ll get really exciting when this world gets projected around us. Or that we can sit on a bench and see a movie, 3D, holographic. In Google Earth, version 15.

The Japanese National Weather Association offers a "rain cloud mail messaging alert service" for mobile phones. That means that you'll get a signal if it's clear there's a rain cloud you've not seen yourself yet coming your way. The Japanese pay $1 a month for this service.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

We’ll slowly start to pay for services tailored to us. Here in subscription model, but I think in time you’ll start to pay per consultation and only consider a subscription when you use it regularly. Of course we’ll have to be able to pay for example $0.50 with the greatest ease, a press of a button. World-wide. And that’s coming too.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

The ING Wegwijzer literally shows you the ING ATMs on Google Android phones. By keeping the phone at eye height you can signal what you're looking at and show it on the screen, enriched with the locations and distance of the nearby ATMs.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

All brands with a physical presence will use this advantage on the street. They’ll make the phone part of the experience, that’ll lure you in as it were. Currently an ATM is really functional, but a restaurant, move theatre or casino will deal with this very differently.

By the by financial coaching brands will take over the job of pointing out where the ATMs are. After all you want to know where all ATMs are, not just those of the ING.

Related trends

• Brand worlds

Dutch housing site Jaap.nl is now also available on the iPhone. If you're somewhere near a house and your Jaap application is active, all you have to do is shake your iPhone. Jaap will then determine which houses are available in the area. You can then look up pictures, the price, surface area, description immediately. You can also call the real estate agent.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Coaching brands are at your side 24 hours a day, world-wide. Through the iPhone or any other device. Later on all we have to call is “Jaap, would this be something for me?” Then Jaap will appear, visualized as a character, and we’ll enter a spoken dialogue. And Jaap will be able to advise you, with your background and wishes in mind. You won’t have to boot up an application. This is a step in that direction.