MyHeritage, one of the world's most popular family-websites, is taking over social network Kindo. Worldwide MyHeritage has over 25 million members and, up to now, has been translated into 25 different languages.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Facilitating mutual contact will eventually be a market for a few companies in the world. Where there are now thousands of social networks and hundreds of telecom operators that also store telephone directories and people need to maintain a different profile everywhere, later people can maintain their data and manage their relationships with others using one social network. Whether that’s family, it’s about friends or vague acquaintances. It doesn’t matter what network they’re on, you can just link to them. Just like the railway tracks used to be all different or we had to connect telephone nets. Social networking sites will offer personal contact services to people: what do I need to do to make you feel happier in your social life? And that mostly automated. The development of big companies that can afford the technology required is well under way. This is an example of this.

Nike knows how to stimulate runners to ever higher performances. Nike sends a spoken congratulations though Lance Armstrong's ear plugs if you've run your personal record and plays a personally chosen 'power song' when your energy is flagging. Runners can also encourage each other with rewards, for example emails which you can only open after a specific performance. Furthermore competitions held in different places at the same time are connected to one another.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Especially the sports sector shows how brands can encourage people to reach higher levels through the use of technology. Mutual battles, motivating examples, the feeling of wanting to be part of something, emotional sounds, rational numbers that stimulate other parts of the brain: all possibilities are used. Yet it doesn’t end here: the measuring of one’s physical and mental condition; do we have the right nutrients?; are we concentrating enough or thinking of other things?; Are we moving correctly?; If not, how should we move?; And what’s possible, given the circumstances? Eventually a personal sports brand will be even better than a human counterpart, but that’ll take a few decades yet.

And a real coach doesn’t choose a specific kind of brand of shoe, but the shoe that lets you perform. This is how Nike can outgrow its status as a shoe producer and earn money by coaching runners. This direction seems to get ever clearer.

Related trends

• More involved

Dutch telecomoperator Hi makes a backup of your telephone book. Users can do this by logging onto Hi and activating the service. They'll receive a text message with the cell phone's setting. Through the phone's menu an online back-up can be made of the telephone numbers. Making and updating a back-up of the Hi-phonebook is free. Who doesn't have a limitless internet bundle pays for the use of data.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how social coaching brands are slowly In 2008 they guard your contacts, some allow you to chat to contacts, others calling them and with the next one you can cam. A few steps further along we won’t think in terms of phone numbers or email anymore, but solely in people, in names, in relationships, in emotions. What you feel with people and then say ‘I’d like to talk to them again!’ And that happens then. You no longer need to look for or save a number, trusted relations will just always be with you. Facilitated by social coaching brands.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Tudou, the biggest Chinese video sharing site (comparable to YouTube), has started the online High Definition-streaming of 100,00 television series. Daily, a hundred Chinese tv broadcasting companies upload their episodes in High Definition to HD.Tudou.com.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Home entertainment coaching brands ensure that all content ever created is gathered together, or at least have access to it. YouTube-like sites can be entertaining, but before they actually do this they need a wide assortment, be available on every TV-screen and and furthermore have a detailed profile of the viewer and the friends of the viewer. This lets you at least see what your friends (and family or colleagues) watched yesterday. That does knock out the television broadcasting companies, however. This is a step in that direction.

It turns out the computer can understand the barking of dogs better than humans, and it can be used to better understand the language of these animals. During a study in the barking of dogs scientists have recorded 6,000 barking sounds of 14 Hungarian Mudi's (a kind of sheep dog). Six different 'barks' were recorded: barking to strangers, barking during a fight, barking 'to take a pee', barking for their ball, barking during playing and barking when it's left behind. After analyzing the digital versions of these 'barks', the computer program connected the right bark to the right action in 43% of the cases. This is almost identical to the score of humans (49%). The computer had a better score with 'walking' and 'ball', while humans scored higher on 'playing' and 'being left alone'. Furthermore the computer could better distinguish which bark belonged to which dog (52%). Earlier, the scientists had determined that humans were practically unable to make this difference.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Computers will understand the world better than we do. Currently they get dogs just about equally, soon much better. Then personal environment brands, brands that in future use this kind of advanced forms of this type of technology, to help us understand the world better by saying, for example ‘your dog wants to take a walk’ or ‘this dog wants to greet you and isn’t angry’. Or, in stranger environments, ‘this snake won’t hurt you now. It’s just eaten and is on its way to its lair.’ This kind of insight, this kind of technology, means that we’ll be able to walk a little freer in the world.

MediaZoo is an online application that makes the user's music available from every location. The music library application is now slowly becoming complete Open Source, which means that music fans can build their own applications for the library. You can think of networking possibilities, such as profiles, message and commenting systems, or an intelligent recommendation system for songs. MediaZoo already offers a few functions, such as uploading music, but also the playing and sharing (with a limited amount of friends) of songs. The service hopes to become the largest library of rights-free music.

Users can, if desired, add their rights-free music to 'The Zoo'. A payment or donation system with which users can support musicians is another example of a possible feature that could be developed by the community. In the meantime MediaZoo Language Localisation, a subproject of the MediaZoo Open Source-project, has already started. This should make the service available in several languages.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

All brands are going through similar situations. All brands are involving their community, are experiencing a brand coming out, after which the direction won’t be with the head office, but with the people. They’ll all enter the dialogue. But brands with a symbolic function, like music brands, can also become very strong in a friends network (more so than, say, an insurance brand). This is a nice example of a brand that’s allowed to start with a clean slate and does it completely differently from the start.

Related trends

• Brand coming out

Glubble facilitates social contacts between a family. Every family has its own family site for photos, a shared calendar can be managed for nice and less nice activities (such as the dentist), birthdays of family members, or keep each other up-to-date about what they're doing at a specific time. Furthermore parents can limit the amount of possible websites their child could visit.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Social coaching brands help with the maintenance of relationships with other people. Where in the first phase we kept phone numbers in our phone, in the second phase entered the type of relationship, this type of brand will emphasize the difference in relationships. Glubble currently emphasizes families, but when this will soon be connected to other families (for example at what time little Emily has to be home after playing with a friend), it’ll also facilitate other types of relationships. Soon we’ll be able to ‘call’ through this type of brand and the spoken intention in our conversation (‘so tonight we’ll meet at 8 pm’) be analyzed immediately, registered in the agenda to remind us of this at a quarter to eight. Not yet, but later. It’s all happening step by step.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Through the renewed Windows Live Photo Gallery people can't just group their photos based on date or location, but also by people. They can also edit the photos. For example, you can make the photo black and white with a single click of the mouse and you can rotate the photos in any angle.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brand will start to recognize the images around us to advertise with them. Brands that specialize in social contact between people, that facilitate with personal contact (such as (Windows) Live, a social coaching brand in the making), also recognize our friends. From their photograph, but later also by their voice, their walk or their behavior. In the long term, even better than we can recognize them ourselves. This is a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Through VandaagOpStap (Dutch) people can look for activities and events that are happening today. With a database of over 9000 activities VandaagOpStap is the biggest outings-website of the Netherlands. People can select from 11 categories, amongst which are 'active entertainment', 'special buildings', 'day outings', 'art and culture', 'music'. Those contain about 10 subcategories. It's also possible to search using region and city. When selecting an event, the website also displays nearby restaurants.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how VandaagOpStap is a coaching brand in the making, a coaching brand that entertains us outside our doors, possibly named a personal outdoor brand. That starts with completeness in the categories and VandaagOpStap is well on its way.

Furthermore it shows how the network economy is developing. We used to deal with guides, with as most extreme example the theater guides where we had to book half a year in advance. In the network economy everything happens realtime: the moment we feel like doing something, a personal outdoor brand can immediately sort all possibilities that suit our profile, only possibilities that are truly possible. Furthermore coaching brands will also take along the diaries of friends; after all you rarely go alone. Personal outdoor brands make sure that you always have something fun to do outside your doorstep. That makes the whole world more spontaneous. More fun, if you will.

Related trends

• Coaching brands
• Network economy

The new iTunes automatically creates playlists based on your own music collection. After selecting a number, you need to press the 'genius' button and then iTunes will automatically select similar songs. You can also give Genius the command to recommend music you don't own yet. Then you can buy those.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how music coaching brands are brought to life. They’re specialists in all kinds of music ever created and can make recommendations. Soon iTunes will look at you literally (!), gauge your mood, and start the music. No whining about buying, but of course you do have to pay for this added value. And if you’re truly touched, iTunes will be able to recommend a concert. This is how iTunes will become a music buddy that travels everywhere with you.

Marillion offers its music for free in exchange for email address, country and city. By entering this, you can download their newest album Happiness Is the Road from p2p-network Musicglue. You can also choose not to enter an information and pay for the album.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Owning music will disappear as a concept. It’ll be all about listening to music and it’ll be the trick to select the right music at the right time. That’ll be the added value for the digital troubadour. That’ll be the added value we’ll start to pay for. Popbands, transaction brands compared to the music coaching brands, offer their music for free. It helps them make contact with the public so that they can build up a fanbase and earn money from concerts and merchandising. Popbands are building a brandculture around themselves, a brand with a symbolic function, because your music choice is a part of your identity which is formed and anchored early on in your life. Popbands first have to know who they’re dealing with and Marillion is taking a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

In the London-based restaurant Inamo you can order food from your table, play games with other people in the restaurant, pay or order a cab. A beamer which projects images onto the black table surfaces makes it possible and through the use of a mouse visitors can browse through the menu and view images of the food. After placing your order you can view how your food is prepared using the 'chef cam'.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Two structural developments are hiding in this example. Firstly this kind of development will lead to the creation of a next generation entertainment place where you can also eat. Like arcades arose from technology, technology in the restaurant kitchen will develop. Furthermore the delivery of additional service will definitely be given a shot. Soon automatic payment will be so smoothly arranged that we won’t even check the receipt. We’ll be recognized when we enter, get the suggestion of the month tailored to our wants, and we’ll just as easily walk outside again and money will be arranged for us. Also in large restaurants, also in other branches of those restaurants. That’s how the dialogue can bind people to the (restaurant)brand and this is an example of a development in that direction.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

Eduhub is a new Dutch comparison site which compares educational courses for private schools. At its start the site contained 265 providers of unsubsidized training courses. The commercial initiatives of universities/colleges also fall under this. Over a hundred of these have a log-in code which allows them to enter the courses they offer manually. Currently, this results in an overview of 3,200 courses. Mentioning courses is free, but providers have to pay if they also want to receive leads. In concrete terms that means people's requests for brochures. Eduhub earns €5 if someone requests a brochure for a €500 course and €50 for one of €5000. It's a fixed percentage, no matter what the popularity of the sections or specific courses.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Career coaching brands guide us with our personal development. Which books should we read? Which events should we go to? Which blogs should we follow? Which job should I choose? What suits me anyway? What makes me happy? How do I get the best out of myself? With the creation of this type of brad it’s important to first chart the available offer, worldwide, in great detail. Eduhub has made a start and can grow into a career coaching brand.

Next steps are then: Which education should I choose now? Which course suits which job? Which courses are most suited for my way of learning? Options aplenty.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

People who want to lose weight would benefit from keeping a diary in which they also photograph the food they're eating. Research by Lydia Zepeda en David Deal (University of Wisconsin-Madison) shows that a confrontation with photographs works better than a regular diary. On top of that it also works preventively. The quantity of food is, in contrast to in a written book, judged before hand which forces one to think. There have been examples of participants who no longer ate crisps or candy because it was too confronting to photograph these beforehand.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

A comparable technique from hypnosis is writing down what you feel before you start eating, then you’re allowed to eat anything afterwards. When you’re aware of being frustrated and have earned a cookie for it, you almost won’t want the cookie anymore.

With this technique it’s a combination of the two. People think in images and not in text, so it’s not surprising that this works better. It’ll be even better when people put it on video. Just tell the camera why you’re eating that. In the step that follows we’ll have real-time contact with our health coaching brand. Then we’ll get 24/7 feedback on our eating habits. Hear immediately what the impact on our body is if we eat at that moment. Then losing weight will be a completely different story.

On programmagemist.nl (Dutch), television broadcaster SBS (Dutch) doesn't show just the videocontent of its own broadcasting channels NET 5, SBS 6 and Veronica, but also of the Dutch public broadcasting channels and of the Dutch RTL. Beyond that ProgrammaGemist (MissedProgram) also has its own hyve, a page on Facebook, on YouTube and on Twitter.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

With the creation of home entertainment coaching brands, brands that entertain us after a day of hard work, it’s about completeness in the first instance: make sure you’ve access to everything. That step’s being taken here (in a limited capacity, but the intention is there). Then it’ll become an art to tailor the evening. What trusted relations (friends, family and colleagues) watched/did is of the utmost importance. With this too SBS is taking a cautious step. Slowly, very slowly, we’re discovering the models of the future together.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

With Kupuk it's possible to control your music system using your iPhone. This is because it creates a link between phones and music systems that could turn out to become very popular.
A Sonos music system (Dutch) is a special audio system that fills the missing link between files on the hard drive, internet radio and the speakers in the various rooms of the house. The core of the system is comprised of one or more 'zone players' which are wirelessly connected to one another. Then you can control each zone with a so-called 'controller. (I've such a system myself and it works great!) Now it's also possible to control the whole system with a 'normal' iPhone.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

All screens will be connected to one another and give you access to all information wherever you want it. In this case, for example, you turn your music on using the computer, turn up the volume with your controller and will turn it off with your iPhone when you walk out the door. And that’s only the beginning. Soon we’ll also be able to use the TV, mirrors or e-readers to control our music: each screen is connected to the virtual world and reacts to our finger movements. After that we only have to say which music we want to hear and after that the digital troubadour will feel exactly what we want. This is a step in that direction.

Related trends

• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion