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.

Via Wesabe consumers can manage their money. They can upload their bank transactions, set goals, and control their financial path (dc, Dutch). Thus financial coaching brands evolve. They control the consumer's household expenses, and advise you in choosing investments, savings, pensions, loans, and mortgages. A good advice however starts at total financial insights, and this is what Wesabe starts at.

Panasonic from now on produces its TV's under brand name 'VIERA'. The plasma top line (the VIERA Z850), which will be on the market soon, as a default has an internet connection. YouTube and Picassa will directly be revealed (av, Dutch). And thus every screen evolves to be a window to the virtual world. Home entertainment coaching brands to be, like Joost, will take advantage of this, and serve the watcher his or her own personal entertainment every night. So the couch potato can just sit at the couch, zap from one program to the other, and be sure to see what friends, colleagues and acquaintances have seen too. This will come in 2008, and have a massive breakthrough after that. It also marks the beginning of the end of TV programming we now know at analogue as well as digital channels.

The Dutch Fietsersbond (cyclists' organization) makes it possible to plan routes through its bike route planner (ld, Dutch). In sports, in transport, in entertainment: brands will support us in all kinds of ways. We don't have to think ourselves any more, we only have to be. With brands as our coaches.

European commissioner Viviane Reding (Information & Media) has plans for a European music market, although national copyright laws are in her way. Licenses for copyright, which have to be taken care of separately in every country now, could cover several countries, or even the whole European Union (dc, Dutch). In the past local copyright was introduced, like countries borders were a couple of years before that. The world however isn't divided in countries: we have done that ourselves at some point. To protect us from evil from outside. As this threat is fading, borders slowly fade too (the process of denationalizing), and we have to start thinking of copyright on a worldwide level. Let's start with Europe. This will prove to be hard enough...

Related trends

• De-nationalizing

iTunes is now offerering movies, starting in the US with 1000 movies, and varies the price per movie. For an existing movie you pay $2.99, for a new movie $3.99 and for an HD movie $4.99 (em, Dutch). We slowly say goodbye to the fixed price. Soon we will pay $0.39 for a very old movie, or $28.00 for a top movie at 3x HD with interactivity. Besides we will get discounts if we buy more often: we get discounts for being loyal customers. Or we will get a free movie every now and then. With that the fixed price, the fixed P from the 5 Marketing P's, will be reduced to something we temporarily knew in the mass production and mass communication era. Step by step we say goodbye to this. And we go back to the time when the grocer recognized you, and every now and then gave you something for free. Back then it was all about relationships, and that is what it will be about in the future again.

A new device featuring GPS, made by Satski, follows your routes at the ski slopes, guards the trip you planned upfront, and gives information about the restaurants on the way. You can also see how many miles you have traveled, what top speed you reached, and you can print the road you have traveled. You can save this, and compare it with other athletes (vo, Dutch). Thus sport coaching brands slowly evolve. Now connected to a device, in the future also available through all kinds of screens, like our mobile phones among others. Now it measures the results after the achievement has been made, in the future it will give you real time tips when you're going down the slopes: bend your knees a little bit more, now 'carve', put your hand on your side, etc. Our ski coach then always accompanies us.

H&M introduces: a virtual fitting room. In this room you can put together an avatar in underwear, including shape, weight, and age. If the BMI (Body Mass Index) is not right (too low for a human body), this is corrected automatically. The avatar then can be dressed. You can not order the clothes yet (vl).

In a next step the clothes (of course) can be ordered, and it won't stop there. Then the next step is getting advice. For example on what fits our shape, not just by style but also by color. After that, we will be able to take this virtual adviser to the shop, who then appears in the mirrors. While we are shopping, we can directly see what it looks like when we put it on, and we get advice. In the long run, we will trust this virtual adviser more than a real sales person in the shop.

But it still doesn't stop here: later our weight will be connected to our bath room scale, we take our avatar to other stores, and we will get advice on how to combine new clothes with the clothes we already have in our wardrobes. To then get advice on cleaning and maintenance of these clothes. But this will take a couple of years.

And earlier or later, even the maintenance will be taken care of for us. Then we just have to toss our clothes in a corner, and after a certain amount of time we will find it in our wardrobe. Robots fold our laundry and put it away. To then have the right outfit ready for us in the morning, exactly right for the activities of the day. Exactly like mom used to do that when we were kids. We still have the possibility to choose ourselves, but we just don't feel like it. There are so many other things we want to do. This is material for pamper planet, material for 2050.

New Dutch dating site Paiq matches people with artificial neural networks, a form of artificial intelligence trying to imitate the way human brains work. People who register first have to enter personal characteristics and a picture. Paiq then matches people based on intelligent rules, which in their turn our based on psychological insights. At the first contact the picture is made very vague, so that the dating partner can't see it sharp. Only after the users have been talking to each other for a longer time, they can see who they are dealing with (via em, Dutch).

The brand Paiq thus becomes a little smarter every day. In fact this brand evolves to be a smart friend, who understands who you are, thinks along, your coach. Someone who can introduce you to other people. A valuable brand. Thus new technology is used to make a brand, and Paiq can grow to be a coaching brand. And this is only the beginning.

New Dutch holiday website Vakantieoordeel.nl searches all big national and international holiday review websites, and publishes all information in one spot. Vakantieoordeel claims to be independent because it is not owned by a tour operator. Besides, bad reviews are not removed. To have a review removed, suppliers will just have to do better (dc, Dutch). Coaching brands, a type of brands in development, have a couple of shared characteristics, among which completeness in the field they are serving, openness, and independence. Only this type of brands in the future will have access to the consumer. Transaction brands, tied to locations, a certain type of service or packages, will have to make sure they offer top service. The development of travel coaching brands has taken off, and this is an example of it.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Mijnsportwereld.nl is a new Dutch network site for active athletes. Apart from central and user-generated sport news like game reports, pictures and videos. it is possible to follow leagues and (in the long run) even start a new league. Besides, members can make their own profile, chat, and apart from friends also add team members and club members. After that, tools will follow for team management, schedules for the bar, and washing the uniforms (mf, Dutch). Thus sport coaching brands slowly develop. First by taking care of many practical issues, but later this type of brands will become our ultimate personal coach by guiding us to top achievements on an individual level. This is only the beginning.

Business-social network LinkedIn shows what your colleagues have read lately. It combines the contact list with news on demand. The amount of job offers rises at the same time (dc, Dutch). Because of this you don't just see the important events in the world, but especially the important events in your surroundings. After all employees are not just employees, but especially humans. And humans are involved in their surroundings. Now for news, later also for participation in events, reviews of books or education. LinkedIn thus further develops to be a career coaching brand, a brand that helps you during your whole career.

In the United States it will soon be possible to legally download movies via iTunes, and watch them on TV through Apple iTV. The company has signed the first contract with Fox (em, Dutch)

Very soon we will be able to browse through a trailer caroussel, and directly watch the trailers. Movies we have recently seen, of course are not shown in this caroussel. Besides, this initiative will especially lead to new content, offered at differing prices. Movies might cost as much as 20 euros. But then you have something very exclusive. And after that your own iTunes will also be available at every other screen or display, wherever in the world. And once it becomes really interactive, it will really kick off. Only then TV (and advertising on TV) will really have a problem. In the future home entertainment coaching brands will completely take over the traditional role of broadcasters: programming a night of entertainment. This future is getting very close though.

Dutch real estate website Funda has now become accessible through mobile phones (fu, Dutch). Brands start dialogues through all kinds of screens and displays, and adapt their communication to the consumer, and the spacial context. In a next step GPS locations for example will also be included. Then you can see immediately if that house in the neighborhood is for sale. Or where the houses for sale are located in relation to the location you are at now. This is great when you walk around in a neighborhood that feels good to live in. A home coaching brand more and more becomes a brand helping you in the area of housing, wherever you are in the world. This development is part of that.

Kango is the first so-called 'travel review aggregator', a site that gathers reviews from all kinds of review sites, and puts them together. That means 20 million opinions of more than 1000 review websites have been analyzed. Holiday makers can search by terms like 'romantic', or 'sweet', apart from objective criteria like price and location. The beta version for now only works in Hawaii and California (mb, Dutch). In 2007 (and 2008 and 2009) completeness is important: bring everything together for me. This is an example of that.

Tripadvisor, the biggest travel review site in the world, has conducted research among its visitors and published it. Tripadvisor now contains more than 10 million reviews, and the research was conducted among 2500 travelers, to recover the trends for 2008. It was about Hotspots (with Jerba, Tunesia as No 1) and airports (with Schiphol, Amsterdam as No 1) (mb, Dutch). Market research is replaced by client research. Brands with access to consumers are very used to asking questions. This type of research then is relatively easy to conduct. In a next step we will get these types of reports more and more often from travel coaching brands, brands that really book the holiday for us, so that we are sure we have really been there.