Stassen Hifi (Dutch) in Venlo was looking for a creative way to inform customers of their relocation. That's why the company decided to turn their shopping window at their location (Vleesstraat) into one big touch-screen. If passers-by touch the interactive window they'll be given information about the new location, products and special offers. They claim it's the biggest interactive shopping window in the Netherlands.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

We’ll surround ourselves more and more with touch-screens. We decide the start of the conversation and it resolves around our questions. They’ll be answered more and more intuitively, so intuitively that even my grandmother would be able to use then. Maybe not this touch-screen, but the next generation of them certainly. Then we’ll just ask what we want. An artificial employer, a brand agent, a chatbot if you wish, will appear and they’ll engage in a real dialogue. This is a step in that direction. In the Netherlands too.

Scott Hobbs is a student at Dundee University, UK, who designed an interactive turning table, operated by touch-screens, for his graduation project. Instead of turntables, records or cds the DJ gets to use two large touchscreens. Hobbs calls it the ATTIGO TT.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

As it stands, this is only a small step towards a bigger virtual whole that cooperates with the physical world. More interactive, more intense and far more physically present than ever. These kinds of applications will be developed as a supplementary and, where possible, replacing product. Where a DJ used to rely solely on his hearing and sense of rhythm, he can now dissect the music files completely and visually see what the audience will be hearing. It should make the life of a consumer simpler and more efficient while increasing the interaction immensely. For now such applications are subjugated to the laws of the physical world and it’ll have to be carried wherever the DJ is going. It’s only a matter of time before the first virtual DJ performs as a hologram.

EasyToBook.com, specialist in online reservations of quality hotels for the lowest possible prices, has started a massive and ambitious expansion. The company is expanding from three European destinations to 2400 destinations worldwide. These new cities will be added to the website. EasyToBook.com's completely revamped website will offer overnight stays in about 20,000 hotels. Dublin, London, New York, Paris and Prague have already been added to the site as the first new destinations.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

All big brands of the coming centuries are operating on a global scale. They have all the knowledge of a specific domain, but know the individual on top of that. Said individual won’t have to look further. EasyToBook may grow to become such a brand in the holiday domain.

On Spot-a-shop.nl users can compose their own shopping route past the best shopping addresses in the Netherlands, print it and take it along into town. This information can then be shared with friends. Users and retailers can add stores. Entrepreneurs can also make their own page and add their company to the Spot-A-Shop database.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how fashion coaching brands come to life. These guide you in your choice of clothes, accessories and stores. It’ll begin at the end of this decade with a complete database of all addresses. This type of brand can make a long-term profit through a subscription model, asking money for advice, or by asking entrepreneurs for a contribution. That has to be made crystal clear for the consumer. That’ll right itself, however, as if they give partial advice such a brand would soon be finished.

This hologram reacts to hand movements.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

We’re making the world more and more real. Soon the hologram will respond to you entirely: make a different face, point at things near you, dances to your music. This is child’s play and soon we can also expect the brand agent in our home. We’ll have moved on a few years, though.

The NS (Dutch Railway company) displays its disruptions through an RSS feed. With this feed (Dutch) users will automatically be kept up to date of disruptions on the train tracks. Then third-parties have made a delaygadget (Dutch) for Windows Vista. This gadget allows delays to appear automatically on the traveler's desktop.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Traveling information is tailored more and more to the individual. For now you still see all the disruptions and delays, but soon you’ll see only those which are relevant to you. For now you can only see that there is a delay, but soon you’ll be able to see how long you’ll be delayed. For now it’s only for (Dutch) trains, but soon a mobility coaching brand will assist you to get from A to B and takes all available real-time information regarding trains, cars, bicycles (weather), walking (danger) or taxi (costs). This is only a start.

Texas Instruments expects that cell phones with a built-in projector can be presented as early as this year. Mobile projectors are now so compact that they can be built into cell phones or other electronic devices. This means any surface can be used as a personal screen which gives sharing your photos a whole new meaning and intensity.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The cell phone’s screen will become even more practical than it is currently. This means consumers can communicate more easily and interactively with one another and with brands. Through, for example, bar codes, rfid or Bluetooth products can be read onto your cell phone and projected onto a surface or even into the air. This can then be saved on the cell phone and the consumer can watch it at leisure back home. Dressing rooms and clothing stores get a new dimension because of this. You don’t even need them anymore. Just let the cell phone project the clothing article onto yourself. Brands and companies on the other hand can monitor which products are uploaded to cell phones the most and adapt their range of products accordingly. It all becomes a lot easier and above all more interactive.

Fring is an application which you install on your iPhone fring and which allows you to call, chat and get into contact with your friends on Skype, Live Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger), Google Talk, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo, and AIM. In addition you can see on your iPhone whether someone is available. This negates the need to keep copying your contacts from one list to another. All you need is a data or WiFi connection on your iPhone. Calling will be free and it won't matter if your friends are behind their computer or are available on their cell phone or another device with an internet connection.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how a social coaching brand, a brand that helps you make new contacts, maintain them or even break them off, is created. With people, or with companies (read: networks of people.) It starts with making a complete list of all the people you have contact with, had contact with, or might want to have contact with. It starts with this.

Internet agency TamTam (Dutch) accepts that a job for life is no longer of this time. The internet agency helps employees make their dreams a reality. With the 'Live Your Dream' concept they offer employees different opportunities to grow into their dreamjob. With the motto 'Live your dream' it helps its employees even with leaving for another company. Where other companies are afraid to lose knowledge with leaving employees, TamTam looks at it positively. 'We see it as an expansion of our own network'.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

In the network economy that’s emerging, brands unite people. People who are committed travel to a building every day to meet like-minded people. Others show up occasionally. Yet others leave with a warm feeling. If we view a company this way, TamTam is building on a networking strategy that may be very beneficial. It’s part of a process of change that all companies go through and which I call brand coming out.

Related trends

• Brand coming out
• Network economy

In the Albert Heijn (Dutch supermarket) on the Lijnbaan in Rotterdam shopping consumers can receive a recipe on their cell phones by passing it by a poster, magazine or shopping aisle. These contain so-called 'Smart Tags', small chips that can be read by special cell phones. The shopping list with ingredients will be sent to the cell phone through a text message. In addition the consumer will receive an email with the recipe.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands are entering a dialogue by letting their products speak. The dialogue is activated by, amongst others, physical products. This is an example of this development.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

YouTube automatically recognizes music in movies that users post. If the music is copyrighted the users will receive an email stating that they're violating copyright laws. Exception is a condition where YouTube is allowed to exploit the video through advertising.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Currently solely on YouTube and solely music, but soon all faces, all voices and all license plates, in every photo, video or audio fragment will be recognized all over the internet, wherever they’re placed, wherever we were, whatever language we spoke. We can conjure up the baptism of someone’s life effortlessly, a hundred times more detailed than we currently can. Only a society in which we’ve formed world wide ideals and values on how to handle this dizzying amount of data can handle this. How do you meet someone you know everything about and who knows everything about you in return? It’s going to take a new generation of inhabitants of this planet.

People traveling by train between Zwolle and Kampen will now be kept up to date of the local news and the most current travel-information like arrival and departure dates, and delays of trains to Zwolle.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

We’re surrounded by ever more screens that connect us to the internet. Currently more or less as a broadcasting medium, including commercials; later to strengthen the experience of traveling by train (and in particular with the NS).

Honda's robot Asimo has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

After the virtual world has been shaped and we’ve left traditional media such as the television, radio and telephone behind us, after 1 virtual world to which we can gain access from hundreds of different kinds of interface has been created, after 2020, we’ll slowly start emphasizing the physical world again. Very slowly physical robots will begin entering our lives. First as a gadget, but more and more as physical aids. For example, around the house, or for the elderly to help them walk. Developments like this robot are ahead of this.

This German movie features mirrors in a German shop window that react to passers-by. A form of augmented reality.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The virtual world is increasingly becoming a shell over the physical world. Now our reflection is changing, but later we’ll be able to participate in a meeting wearing our pajamas because a shirt, tie and suit can be added without problems and invisibly. We’ll also be able to address customers like this. This is a step in that direction.

Theatre lovers can sign up for a virtual queue on the website of the Schouwburg Almere. They'll be given a text message when it's their turn. The text message is free and contains a log-in code for the website. This means that the consumer is no longer forced to stay behind their own computer, but can finish their order on any computer. People who aren't in the vicinity of a useable computer at the time they receive the text message can log in at a later date and won't lose their 'turn'. It is possible that the show of their choice is sold out by then, though.

The Schouwburg Almere has a reservation system with which the visitor can choose his or her own seats for a show. On the internet they can see which seats are still available on a seating plan. They can also reserve still-available seats.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Electronic media give the allocation of a limited supply a whole new dynamic. Right now visitors have to fill things in themselves, but later they’ll let coaching brands do the work for them. Then they’ll only say “I’d like to see that!” and everything will be taken care of. Maybe you’ll just enter the maximum price. In this network economy a theatre can get a demand for 2000 seats while only 500 are available though registration isn’t yet opened. The theatre can then raise the prices until there are only 500 bookings still open. That means that the people with the most money have the biggest chance. And the theatre could do different things about that, provided they know who’s booking. For example, the people who’ve made a donation might be given priority. There are hundreds of other examples. The times of the bill, the ticket and the waiting will be left behind in any case.

Related trends

• Coaching brands
• Network economy

Since recently you can make and sell your own games for the Nintendo Wii. Developers can use the WiiWare service to develop games for the Wii. Then the games can be sold and spread through the WiiShop Channel. This means developers no longer need huge budgets to bring their game to the consumer.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

With this development the consumer is given just as much power as the exclusive developers. Of course they don’t have the same capacities and budget, but they do have the opportunity to develop their own products. In future unhappy developers will develop their own games and offer them to the consumer, and that maybe for a tenth of the price we’re currently paying for computer games. For the consumer this means cheaper and somewhat less elaborate games; for the small developers it means profit; and for the bigger companies it means competition. Resulting, eventually, in cheaper games. This tendency is visible everywhere. Consumers are developing their own applications, share these with others and then ask money for them. Consumers are receiving, directly and indirectly, more and more power and companies that don’t follow will be left behind as a result. Brands such as Nintendo realize this and are making this kind of development possible already. In future brands will have to look even closer at the consumer and even ask what the consumer wants. The consumer will then decide the presentation, the hardware and the software which a given product needs to match.