Coaching brands are a new type of brands which will develop over the next ten years. Coaching brands cover areas such as health, money, travel, home or children. Within their area they know everything that is available (world wide!) and besides, they know everything about us individuals. This way coaching brands will anticipate our wishes, advice us and help us make transactions. We will select 10-20 of these coaching brands: one for each area. These brands become our friends. They are available anywhere we are, world wide. These brands will have themselves represented by ‘coaching brand agents’: visual characters with which we start vocal dialogues. In the long term these characters will look like people. On TV, on the mobile phone or on any other possible display they will appear when we want them to. This all goes slowly, step by step. Those steps are discussed here.
Fleshbot discovered that Jess of UndressJess just started recording her Camgirl videos in 3D, allowing her viewers to get the sense that she's actually sticking out of their monitors a slightly bit. Using a fancy little Minoru webcam, she's started recording some of her videos.
Google Voice, is an alternative call apllication to run on smart phones or other devices. Google Voice is now about to hit iPhones by way of an app. This app for the iPhone has immediately access to your contacts.
Here is how it works: you don't press you regular 'Phone' application, but you select your Google Voice button. You just dial a number or select it from your contacts, as you would do in your regular phone application. The App diales out to Google and you' be a called back to connect both sides and you press the Green button. In this way, you do not only skip the standard fees charged to you by your operator, it will also allow you to maintain your calls from any other smartphone or devices. It actually disconnects your telephone number from your device. Additionally, you can also SMS people the same way.
Wave is a new communication platform by Google. It's a Frothy Collaborative Mix of Chat, Instant Messaging, Twitter and Google Docs in Real-Time: A "wave" is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more..
Here's how it works: In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use "playback" to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.
TED, the knowledge platform famous for its public talks, launched a new commenting system. Here are the main enhancements:
Brands constantly find new ways to engage consumers. In the old days via PR, magazines and newspaper. Since the late nineties through the web. Since a few years it’s possible to react on postings. Now they’ve started to sophisticate
reaction mechanisms. And soon people awarded with a TEDCred label will be invited to give a talk themselves. That’s an algoritm that find talent, to explore opportunities with your audiences, within consumers, within members. It’s a typical examply of the brand coming out.
Vuze, the online video service provider, now integrates playback with iPhone, iPod, AppleTV, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 devices in its online video portal application.
Tanita's BC-1000 Body Composition Monitor is a sophisticated scale, collecting measurements on muscle mass, overall physique, daily caloric intake, metabolic age, bone mass and visceral fat. From there, the unit can either send those details wireless to your watch, or it can beam them to any PC. The device will be shipped for $279.99 with a USB stick or $399.99 with an FR60 watch.
The Ondus Digitecture by Grohe is a slim, wall-mounted panel that adds a futuristic dimension to your bathroom. The newest addition to the award-winning Grohe Ondus Digital Faucet Collection, the Digitecture, includes temperature control, touchpad operation, an attractive faucet, and holders for soap and cups, all in one place.
In the next step our taps will be the media panels. We’ll instruct them for the experience we want and they’ll adjust not only the water and the soap, but also the light, the odor, the music, and match the bubbles to our mood, as this is measured too. The interesting thing comes when we can also visit a hotel bath in a foreign country and our health coaching brand recognizes us and continues our bathing experience in a total different atmosphere. It never seems to stop…
Airline KLM has launched a digital boarding pass that allows passengers to check in and board an airplane using their (smart)phone without the need for paper. After checking in via (mobile) internet they'll receive a message with a barcode via SMS, email or MMS. The message will also contain standard information like departure time and seat number. The barcode is scanned at the gate and allows the passengers to find their place.
In the next step KLM will use our current position to guide us through the airport. When a plane is delayed, we’ll be informed so we can enjoy another cappuccino. When we have to start walking because the gate is a 30 minutes’ walk from our current position, we’ll be informed in time. And just a few years after this we’ll have a spoken conversation with the brand agent of KLM, which will come into our lives during the sales process and guides us from our front door to the moment we’ve arrived at the next transport hub or destination and which will do the evaluation afterwards.
ReadyPing, a new mobile service is allowing customers in restaurants to be notified via text message when their table is ready. Restaurant hosts must enter a customer's name, number of guests and a contact mobile number. When the table is available, the host just clicks a button and a "ping" is sent to that customer.
Carnegie Mellon undergraduates Dan Eisenberg, Kevin Li and Ilya Brin have developed the EyeTable, which is described as "an artificially intelligent dinner table that reads physical gestures and speech patterns and lets the participants know how the date is going—in real time.
The EyeTable is composed of a centerpiece and two headpieces. Sensors placed on these parts detect fluctuations in tone of voice, periods of silence, and distance between the couple. If the EyeTable detects that the date is not going well, it will try to help the couple by suggesting some post-dinner activities or by suggesting another bottle of wine. If the EyeTable detects that the date is beyond help, it will instead give the numbers for the local cab companies.
Legacy Locker notifies friends (in online worlds) of your death. When you're still alive, you create a secure environment where you can store all your passwords. When something has happened, Legacy Locker will require a copy of your death certificate before releasing information. Surviving relatives then get access to your mail accounts, online services you used and your online friends. The service costs $30 per year.
Whether we’re talking about our identity in the virtual world or in the physical world: in the mind of people it’s all the same. Whenever someone disappears, they’ll be missed. And to miss someone is a negative emotion. To address this emotion, new companies will step into this market. And this is just the first step.
Social networks will soon integrate this functionality. In the next step, they will first make sure that each individual profile is checked with a birth certificate (or authorisation by the country of the individual’s nationality) to make sure each profile really represents one single individual. As soon as someone claims that someone is dead, it has already been in the national administration, so it can be acknowledged immediately and death can be communicated by their relatives. The social network will offer services to help those who are left behind to handle their emotions. That will be much more important than just informing them.
That’s how social networks evolve into social coaching brands.
IRLconnect connects to your friend profiles on Facebook and Twitter and plots them on a (Google) map. This visualizes not only what your friends are doing but also where they are doing that. Op top, you can change your status for all platforms instanteneously. IRL Connect is private beta. However, you could use the invitekey which is at the bottom of this posting on one of my favorite Dutch websites DutchCowboys.
Videosite Joost is unlocking its content through social network Netlog. With this users are given the ability to watch movies, tv shows or music videos directly from their profile. Furthermore, they can share videos with their friends and offer comments on clips using the already existing features of Netlog. In the Benelux Netlog users are given a varied assortment, including the Dutch versions.
Movies, music, books: they’re just experiences humans like to share with others, Later we can just watch a movie, on any screen, anywhere in the world, in any language and we’ll give feedback with our emotions. We won’t need to write we thought it was great anymore. Our social coaching brand could see that without it, and we can share them with our friends, anywhere in the world, no matter what language they speak. This is a step in that direction.
Dutch download site legaldownload.nl sells music of relatively unknown artists. They can upload their music in MP3-format for free. Radio broadcasters can delve into the database for their programmes for free and generate extra airplay. There's no hassle with rights. Third parties can then open a shop to sell the music. All downloads count towards the hit lists in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. For the last an artist pays 99 euro a year.
This is how increasingly simpler models to sell music are created. Eventually music will be dirt cheap, sometimes even free, and artists will make money from concert tickets sold by music coaching brands. First we have to get rid of the old models and this is a step in that direction.
Wehkamp lets image stylist Dyanne Beekman, known from various Dutch tv shows and the DYANNE collections give advice. Based on nine questions regarding hair colour, hairdo, skin tone, eye color, figure type, length, weight, style group and size Dyanne puts together a personal style advice and shows which clothing the customer is best off wearing. Every six weeks wehkamp.nl shows a new collection and with every new collection the customer can count on new advice by Dyanne.
This is how brand advice becomes increasingly more personal. Later on we’ll stand in front of the webcam in our underwear (or naked) and our body will be measured immediately. At first we’ll have to show a marker with a set length so that the length can be measured too, but that’ll be automatic too in time. We’ll also get a better insight in our skin colour, the exact shape of our face or the proportions of the limbs and the trunk. And the advice will be a lot better then. This is another step in that direction.
The Dutch public transport travel planner 9292 is organizing a contest that challenges students to create the ultimate public transport (web) application. They get access to a special server that sends them XML-code which they can use to connect their application to the public transport databases. They can win 1500, 750 or 500 euro.
All companies will open their databases. First they were the web 2.0 companies, but now also traditional companies with a lot of technology, later you’ll get insight in every detail and into every company. That’s called transparent working in the network economy. And that process of change is called the brand coming out. A nice example.
An Intelligent Equivalent of the 3d world
Intelligent Autonomous Robots doing incredible jobs
Nature & technology perfectly blended