Through CitySense inhabitants and visitors of San Francisco can see where the masses are in a city with one press on their BlackBerry. Through GPS and WiFi-locations of other (anonymous) CitySense-users the BlackBerry displays real time where in the city the most people are gathered. You can see whether it concerns a busy restaurant, overcrowded bar, or a steamy club. Also ideal for when you're looking for an empty bar stool or don't want to go out where all of San Francisco is at that moment.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands will aid people with real time information in real time increasingly often. In this case you see what’s happening NOW for other people in the city. The same also goes for a TomTom with detailed route information based on other users that are stuck in a traffic jam at that moment. Soon we’ll be able to view the inventory of any store in the neighborhood and reserve immediately. We’ll know that it’s now a twelve minute walk because of road-work, but it’s usually a ten minute walk. As such we’ll get a pair of ‘antennae’ on our head that guide us across the world and that look further and deeper than we can ourselves. Brands will get a very meaningful role in this. This is a nice, innovative example.

Samsung has asked consumers to make a home video containing a Samsung phone with the help of the site InstinctThePhone. Samsung will add the phone, you don't even have to own it. The first 1000 videos will receive $20, the winner $10.000.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands will more and more often come up with mechanisms to employ existing customers, or other people involved with the brand, to reach others. This is a nice example of it.

Yvette, Rabobank's brand agent, has sent an email to her relations to ask about their experiences with her. The text in the email turns out to come from the University of Maastricht and contains a link to the survey site. Here Yvette's relations will be asked questions such as 'during my conversations with Yvette we talk about things other than just finances' which people can answer themselves.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands are increasingly represented by brand agents, artificial characters that, in time, will look like humans and with which we engage in dialogue. For now it’s just in third person, but in time Yvette will ask ‘Do you mind if I sometimes ask you personal questions?’ Not during email, but during a spoken conversation. The facial expression of the customer will say enough. Then market research will be a continuing logical part of the dialogue between people and brands. Using Yvette to send an email and as part of a survey is a step in this direction.

Through Dutch housing site Zuka buyers and sellers can chat with one another directly. Typical questions that aren't (as) easily caught in a database - for example 'from what time will the sun be shining in the garden?' or 'when was the exterior painted for the last time?' - can easily be answered in this way. In an extreme case one might even be able to make an offer from the chatroom.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

You can sell or buy a house just like any other object. We used to need all sorts of complicated things for this, but in the network economy that’s being created it’s all about allowing two parties to meet. In a next step, Zuka could arrange for a notary, sort mortgages and arrange the move. Sometimes you’ll need a physical, real person, but that’s going to be the case less and less. This is a development in that direction.

Related trends

• Network economy

Energy company Nuon offers Dutch people self-service through the number 0900 0808. Callers are asked to enter their client number and the four numbers of their zip code for identification. After that, through the use of IVR (Interactive Voice Response system, with keys) they can check whether a bill has been paid, change the account number, increase or decrease the amount pay or switch to automatic payments.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how companies are increasingly automating the dialogue. Available 24 hours a day, no waiting periods, and above all you’re helped faster. Currently only with the phone’s keys, but after with speech. Currently you need a lot of codes on hand, but soon you’ll simply talk and be recognized by your voice and mobile number. It’s coming ever closer.

At GreenNote American students can get financing for their college/university studies through acquaintances. The student creates a profile and adds, alongside the desired monetary amount, a photo, information on finished courses and in 'my story' the reason the money is needed. And of course why they think that lending them money to go to college is a good investment. From there the student can start to approach people.

If people are interested in offering a loan, GreenNote formalizes this through a legally binding contract for both the student and the person offering the loan.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how new financial brands are created in the network economy. The new model will be borrowing from the acquaintance of an acquaintance. We trust the people we know, our trusted relations, and the trust that they have in the outside world. This is how micro credit becomes useable around the globe, this is how new brands such as GreenNote grab a chance that traditional banks aren’t yet embracing well enough.

Related trends

• Network economy

Dutch TV producer Talpa (Dutch) belonging to John de Mol asks for new ideas on TalpaCreative (English). Visitors of the site can win €500,000 and on top of that their idea will be brought to life, giving them eternal fame as an added reward.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

It’s a typical example of the network economy in which different parties can find each other in a different way. In this new economy the production factors are knowledge, creativity and relationships (as Ben Tiggelaar once said). Those are the factors with a shortage and so people have to look for them. That creativity is the only limitation left also shows. If we have a good idea we’re almost certainly able to make it. Anything is possible. And if it’s not possible then it can be done in the virtual world anyway. Brands facilitate this process and Talpa is giving an example here.

Related trends

• Network economy

On MijnAankomst (MyArrival) you can register your traveling plans beforehand. If you don't arrive at the designated time all contacts you've entered will automatically get an emergency message via text message and email. This message will contain advice on how to trace you quickly. If you want to go for truly safe you can let certain contacts know your plans even before you leave.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Human beings want to move across the globe in all freedom. Insecurity is an important reason not to travel. For example because of unfamiliarity with the culture, nature, local crime rates or the language. Technology will start to assist bridging these gaps. This service of Dutch site MijnAankomst (MyArrival) is an example.

Anyone with a Dutch bank and cell phone number can now transfer money privately with a text message (SMS) by using Rabobank SMS betalen (Rabobank Text Message Payment, Dutch). Useful for such things as sharing a cab, buying a birthday gift together with several friends or paying in a restaurant. There are a few simple steps:

• open a mobile wallet on www.rabosmsbetalen.nl and put money on it


• send a text message to 6689 with the cell phone number of the recipient and the monetary amount (for example 0621567657 10)


• you'll receive a text message confirmation of 6689 with a password – that's just a normal Dutch word; in my test it was 'kwaal' (illness)


• send a text message with the password to 6689


• you've paid. The recipient will now receive a text message with the amount paid and the cell phone number of the person who made the transaction

If the recipient doesn't yet have a mobile wallet, they'll receive one automatically on the payment. Then the recipient can pay with the money again immediately and this allows the mechanism to spread virally very fast.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

People don’t want to transfer money to a number, but to a person. A cell phone number is already more a ‘human’ than a bank account (which could also represent, say, a company). Soon it’ll be a standard function in Live Messenger, transfer money. Currently through Rabobank, but soon everyone will have a wallet hidden behind their telephone number. Sooner or later a financial coaching brand can help you with the simple sentence ‘transfer ten euros to Erwin’. Given the setting around that time the brand won’t even have to ask you which Erwin you mean, but transfer the money immediately. This mobile product brings this future another step closer.

The line between banners and widgets (an intelligent coding behind a space on a website that can be shared by different websites) is slowly disappearing. This example shows a banner of an event that users can mark. This way users can put the date directly in their diaries, invite friends, set a reminder (maybe the user wants to decide later), put it on their personal page on Facebook (without showing it to friends or other people) or just book tickets straight away.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

A smart publisher, read a smart brand, makes sure that someone who’s set something as a reminder has a different ‘show’ the next time. To someone who’s already booked you don’t need to show ‘book now’ again. And that smart publisher will at some point know so much about a customer that they’ll know exactly what to offer next time. And that ‘publisher’ won’t earn money from the ad revenue, but from actually selling products. This is how publishers can develop into coaching brands. This is a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Google offers American BlackBerry users the ability to search through Google Maps Mobile using voice commands. How it works is simple. By pressing 0 the map centers around the location of the user. By pressing a special button the user can pronounce the business or the name of the business (for example 'ATM' or 'cash machine'). After releasing, Google gets to work.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands are starting to react to everything the consumer says, how the consumer watches, what the consumer does. In time the text the consumer writers will become less and less important. Currently we’ve still built a whole society on them. That’s going to be brought down in the coming years. It’s all about reacting to your conversational partner. It’s all about the dialogue.

With Air, Bed & Breakfast you can spend the night in people's homes. You only pay a small fee.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how the added value pillar of every existing concept will be knocked down. A hotel has, for example, a bed to offer, but also takes care of the cleaning, the security and breakfast. That’s what makes a hotel a hotel, and that made the offers comparable in the old days. In those days you could make a guide book, organizing by destination, class or price. In the demand-driven era you can see ‘I want a bed, take care of my own cleaning, my own security and my own breakfast’. That’s in actual fact the model that’s being offered here. Personal travel brands will sort everything and just ask what it is that you’d like.

Inside Trip has refined searching for flights to such an extent that not just the price counts as a criteria, but also the amount of transfers, the risk of delays and the average amount of times luggage gets lost.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

We’re guided better and better. All generic aspects will start to count. All personal aspects will start to count too. That’s the added value of the mobility coaching brands.

Through SMSParking inhabitants of Amsterdam can pay for their parking with a text message. A simple text message at the beginning and end of parking will do. The driver parks his/her car and sends a text message with the zone-number of the parking lot and the license plate number of the car to 4030. The system confirms that parking has started with a text message. Placing a separate parking ticket in your car will no longer be necessary. As soon as the driver is done parking, (s)he sends a message with just the letter 'q' to state that they quit parking there. The system again confirms this with a text message which will contain the zone, the license plate number, the time, the date and the price.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

In the dialogue between human and brand payment is a normal part. Soon if we say to our brand ‘Yes, that’s what I want’ it’ll be given to you immediately and the payment will be dealt with immediately as well. For parking this means that our mobility coaching brand will soon see that we’re standing in a specific spot, organize the payment for us and give us an overview at the end of the month. If we want, we’ll also be given tips on how to reduce the costs of parking, but some people won’t need that. The mobility coaching brand will understand precisely.

Symbian is an operating system for cell phones like Microsoft Windows is for computers. Symbian doesn't work on all cell phones, but it does work on, for example, the ones manufactured by Nokia. Some of the big cell phone manufacturers, amongst which Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola, have announced that they will start a Symbian Foundation. Its most important goal will be turning the Symbian OS into open source, which means that the source code, the big secret of Symbian if you will, becomes accessible to everyone.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The great thing about this development is that soon not only a few thousand people on the Symbian head office will be working on new versions of the system, but millions of programmers across the globe. This ultimate form of co-creation means that you can involve millions of people with their brand, you can create fans that infect their neighborhood in turn.

For now this works for software developments, but in time it’ll also go for electronics, furniture, clothing, food, even bank products. The big trend is called brand coming out.

Related trends

• Brand coming out

American passengers who travel with Delta Air Lines from La Guardia Airport in New York can now download their boarding pass onto their cell phone prior to their flight. That way these passengers will no longer have to wait in line at the Check In desk when they arrive at the airport and instead walk straight towards the Gate. There the mobile boarding pass and the passenger's identity will be checked.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This shows how ‘recognition’ by brands becomes extremely relevant to the consumer: it means comfort. Each time consumers let go of some part of their identity, each time brands learn something more about them, consumers will be helped better, faster or more completely. This is how the dialogue has value for both parties.