Japanese Nintendo Wii owners can order pizza from their game console from the coming spring. The pizza will be delivered within half an hour. To facilitate the food orders through the Wii, Nintendo Japan has collaborated with the delivery site Demae-can.com. Apart from pizza people can also order Chinese or sushi through the special Wii channel.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands are preparing for an enormous revolution: namely being present on a whole bunch of (mobile) screens. By now the time of ‘the’ internet is far behind us. The luxury that we only had to worry about the size of the sreen. It’s about about being present everywhere. And later, on call, when you hear your name ‘as brand’, you have to get to it right away.

Using Flu Trends, Google predicts the spread of the flu. Google's researchers have discovered that there's a relationship between people who have the flu and who search for flu-related words. From their own research it shows that there are more flu-related queries during the flu season. The movement of this trend
To inform the insurees of the height of the profit, InShared is the fist insurance company that makes it's premium-damage equation permanently public. On the site you can find exactly how much premium InShared has received in total and how much damage the insurer has had to pay. The figures are actualised each quarter. From the total income, InShared reserves 80% for paying damages; the remaining 20% are reserved for the company and potential losses. All the money in the 80% that's not used for damages goes back to the insured.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

A brilliant example of the brand coming-out: the process in which companies start to operate completely transparentl, and enter society as a network. In a next step, consumers will be stimulated to keep the collective claims as low as possible, for now it’s on an individual basis. Involvement will be rewarded, you can see that reward as salary, through which thousands of employees are found. And in the step after that the salaries of employees will be known too, all bonuses, but also what exactly they do. This is how a brand grows from being a closed system that offers products into a dynamic open network in which people network to add additional value to each other’s lves. And wherein the brand has only become stronger. Much stronger.

Dutch company Spotted by Locals has won the international Open Web Awards in the category "Travel". Spotted by Locals is a European network of (currently) 20 cityblogs on which local bloggers write about their favourite places in the city they love. The site is aimed at experienced travellers that want to experience cities in a local way and would like to miss a highlight or two to avoid the tourist masses. Currently there are 95 "Spotters" that, after a personal conversation, are contracted to write about their city.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The artificially created difference between ‘tourist’ and ‘local’ will disappear. It’s about people with a comparable living pattern that are brought together world-wide. Someone who appreciated a couple of restaurants in Barcelona, will also appreciate comparable restaurants in Amsterdam or Sydney. It really is about the individual experience and that’s clearly visible in this example.

Related trends

• Tribal

Through Readen Commerce's personal assistant you can automatically take care of your business appointments. Your flight delayed? Your appointments will be automatically informed and your dinner moved. And that's just an example.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

We’re connecting everything real time. Later when you’re in an interesting conversation, but your next appointment is delayed you’ll simply not be told to end your conversation. You can keep chatting a while longer. Just like parents with their children. Only on the moment you leave, you’ll get a signal, and if you want fifteen minutes earlier so that you can finalise things. And of course coming this this coming years with (worldwide, realtime) traffic information. In time the car will show up a little later, the heating will turn on a little later and the groceries are delivered a little later. Human’s whole time management (both business and private) will be taken from one’s hands and this is an example in that direction.

Related trends

• Network economy

Kogan is an Australian electronics supplier and has made, amongst others, the second Google Android phone in the world, the Kogan Agora. During its announcement a call was made for a new name and there were many responses. It doesn't appear that the name was really chosen. The phone is expected on the market shortly.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands are experiencing a brand coming-out, involve consumers on every level, so also in thinking about the name. Currently as an unorganised ‘mess’, but later with arguments, votes for arguments, etc. So that the best ideas float at the top and not the ideas of the people who make the most noise. Because the world that’s being created it won’t be about shouting anymore, but it’ll be about listening.

Related trends

• Brand coming out

Dutch vehicle owners can now log in (with their unique code for the Dutch government: DigiD) on the RDW (official governmental vehicle registration) through MijnOverheid.nl and see for which vehicles they're responsible. They can see the technical data, insurance, year, date of the first license plate and the validity of the vehicle inspection.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

We’ll be shown everything that’s been recorded about us. Currently as a nice gesture, but later it’ll be recorded in the law. In a next step we can give others access, so that, for example, a garage can keep the maintenance book up-to-date online and can have the car pass the inspection immediately. Or can connect to the car, for example to install the latest software update of the navigation software. Or we can transfer the car from the sale. And of course that can also be done mobile, so that we take care of this standing by the car. It’s all heading in that direction.

Related trends

• Network economy

To help the consumer make a choice for a specific product, Dutch comparison site Beslist now offers over 18,000 preselected video reviews, beside the comments of users (70,000) and experts (100,000).

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Everything is becoming image. Text will disappear. Completely. The dialogue will become image and sound. It can’t get more intuitive than that.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

Webstore Plemix is animated its favicon (the icon that appears in your browser when you mask a page as a favourite). On opening the page, the mini-logo scrolls away and makes room for the word 'Plemix'.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Logos, favicons, nothing remains static. Brands are learning that small, subtle movements draw our attention. Furthermore later (when more design has been added) the brand personality can be transferred. Even in the favicon. Because even a dot that moves in a special way can carry personality.

Related trends

• Brand visualization

Fanta 3d Virtual Tennis is a game which uses your cell phone's camera and image recognition. On Fanta.eu the user can download the playing field. Then you can play by aiming the camera at the field. The tennis balls seem to come straight at you. The game can be played on the following Nokias: N82, N95, N95-3NAM, N95-8GB, 6120 Classic, 6121 Classic, N81 en N81 8GB. See the video or download the application on www.fanta.eu (or through your mobile browser: http://m.fanta.eu).

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands are developing 3d worlds. Not just for the PC, but especially for the cell phone. In time each screen will have built-in cameras and all screens will respond to your movements, with multiple screens at a time, to portray the brand world in the best possible way, to make the experience as real as possible. Then the graphics will become photorealistic and this’ll be child’s play.

Related trends

• Brand worlds

Social network MySpace is working together with video content producer Endemol on a new show in which the social network organises the preparations for a wedding. The social reality show will count 13 episodes and is called 'Get Married on MySpace'.

Different couples can sign up, and the network will vote for their favourite couple. It doesn't stop there, however: the network can –- after selecting their favourite couple -- make the most important decisions. The dress, the wedding location, everything is decided by the MySpace-visitor.

The last episode will be devoted to the wedding ceremony and can be watched live on MySpace.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Social coaching brands are looking for added value that fits with their future function: bringing and keeping people together. So not selling music, vacation reviews or gadgets, but focusing solely on maintaining relationships. This exactly fits in this completely.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Facebook is now available on the Xperia™ X1 phone of Sony Ericsson. On this photos of your friends will integrate on the desktop of your phone (standby-screen), you can see their latest status changes if you touch the pictures and you get more options if you touch them again, including calling them. Furthermore you can quickly upload photos to Facebook. The Facebook panels can be downloaded for free using the built-in download function of the smartphone or from the Sony Ericsson website (choose 'Panels')

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Personal media connects to what’s closest to people: friends, family, warm relationships. Currently it’s useful to call with 1 click, but later on you can say that you’d like to be called only by friends, or by friends of friends. That brands still want to call too, that’s their problem. All brands we trust get a separate rule and can call us on occasion. And brands like Facebook, social coaching brands in the making, are at the gate to remove their unwanted behaviour (permanently). It won’t be long now.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

For Wall-E, Disney's new DVD movie, a print advertisement appeared in the Dutch tv guide Totaal TV. Holding this up to the webcam you wouldn't see just the magazine, but you could see Wall-E come to life too. With moving images and sound. A typical example of augmented reality, an added reality.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

So all products come to life. Whatever we’ll point at, there’ll always be something to say about it. Whether it’s a tree, a bicycle, a bag of dirt, the neighbour’s four-year-old, or a 1972 Ferrari, augmented reality ensures that we find out everything ever made available. This is just a beginning.

Related trends

• Product activation

3D producer ShapeWays lets consumers start their own stores. With ShapeWays technology almost every object can be 'printed': built up step by step. Consumers can make their own design in the ShapeWays environment, which then appears in their own ShapeWays shop with their own URL and their own logo. You can determine your own margin (on top of the production costs). When someone orders your model, ShapeWays prints it, ships it, does all the customer service needed and, of course, pays you the margin. The design rights remain with the designer at all times.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

New companies know the absolute advantage that they haven’t built up any regular staff, no holy houses, no people fearing for their jobs. So you can look for people to create new things pretty easily. Existing companies will slim down to models like this. That won’t be easy. In the meantime, ShapeWays will go on. In time we’ll be able to see what our friends made, design models together, let it be wrapped specially and so on. This is just a beginning.

Related trends

• Brand coming out

Xobni is an Outlook-plugin that displays a lot of information in an extra right hand column. It can display contact information (including, for example, one's Skype address), link to profiles on social networks, statistics of the communication with individual contacts (amount of emails to this person in the past day/week/month) and how this person scores compared to others, related contacts (based on ccs) and ongoing conversations. Xobni gets the contact information from the email signatures. If you want to look up someone and you type an 'a' then Xobni will immediately look up 'Adam', a person you have a lot of contact with. Tip: Boris Toet

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

And this shows us how social coaching brands are slowly developing. Where first we made just a list of friends, now we’ll start to differentiate between friends, between contacts. Xobni helps us to analyse them. So that when we call ‘Call William’ in the car, it’s immediately clear which William you mean, even though you have five listed in Outlook. This kind of functionality will be taken over by all social network and communication tools.

Eventually we’ll choose one brand that watches all our contacts for us across all social networks. And which will help us maintain those relationships. Suggesting presents for a birthday is a simple example, helping is with organising a party for this specific person is a second, but eventually brands like Xobni will listen in on a conversation to make us (afterwards) aware of how we communicate. So that we can take it into account in future. We’re nowhere near that yet. After all, everything goes, you guessed it, step by step.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Hyves, a Dutch social network, now has an application for the iPhone. The application has an address book with the contact details of all Hyvesfriends. With a press of a button the iPhone user can call his or her friends, mail them, text message them or send a note or PM. Besides that photos made with the iPhone can easily be placed on the Hyvespage and Hyvesphotos can be watched on the iPhone.

In a next version a map will be made available. You can use it to see where your friends are. This option, however, won't be available until next year. You'll also be able to see per spot which events there are and which of your friends are already there.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

More and more brands are discovering that there are many more screens beside the TV and the internet. The amount of screens will explode in the coming years and brands will appear on all of them. This is an example of that.

Furthermore we see in this development that technology is disappearing. If there’s anything that’s technical, it’s a phone number. Currently you add your phone number to your Hyves-profile yourself and friends can then call you. Now they still see the number, but later even that won’t be necessary anymore. And in the long term, you won’t know your number anymore either; it’ll be connected to the way you ‘sign up in the virtual world’ and you’ll be able to do that since childhood (so in a decade or so), so you won’t know any better than that it’s all automatic. It’s about wanting to call someone; not dialing a number, but calling someone’s name. That’s hidden in this.