Dutch broadcasting corporation Avro's television guide, Televizier, is launching a socail network with its renewed online guide. Visitors can discuss television programs, share viewing tips, become 'buddies' with other fans and viewers, read news reports and become tv critics. If you post on the site enough you can become a 'superfan'. The reviews that 'superfans' write are included in the Televizier magazine.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Publishers have (or maybe I should start saying: had) chance to convert files from readers into a lively community and to grow into coaching brands. Elsevier is taking a step in the direction of becoming a home entertainment coaching brand. Now aimed at the Netherlands, but soon all the content ever made in the world will will be avilable. Then the communities (read: a brands user groups) also become world wide. If Televisier is sucessfull it will eventually be able to make money by selling content.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Hyves celebrates the Dutch national holiday Queens Day with nine different logo illustrations: By clicking on the image shown nine different Queens Day illustrations appear in the top left position.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands are further building their brand visualisation. The time that a logo had to stay still is slowly being left behind, but the time a logo had to be consistent is far behind us. Even so there are still a very limited number of brands that dare to experiment with logo illustrations.  It is as if this is something only for ‘internet brands’. Any brand can do it. Every brand becomes more congenial by doing it. And it is much cheaper than any above-the-line campaign you can think of . The effect is not yet measurable, there hasn’t been enough research done, but you do get the feeling that it does something with the brand. Brand managers, get going!

Related trends

• Brand visualization

News network eKudos rewards members who introduce new members with money. If the visitor you have introduced registers on eKudos this is automatically coupled to your Adsense account (your income). A link is established between you and the new member. When you place articles on the public pages there are Google adverts that produce income for eKudos, these adverts are coupled to your Adsense account and you recieve a proportion of the income. The more active you are and the more you write the better. If you also bring new members in then that produces income for you too because the mechanism also works at deeper levels. If you want to give it a try then register via the link in this article, it's as simple as that!

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands are slowly learning to master the subtitles of tribal thinking. They understand that many people aren’t stimulated by these sort of mechanisms and are creating other mechanisms for other types of people. Anyone who wants to do something for the brand must be maximally facilitated. This is a nice example.

Related trends

• Tribal

Last month social psycologist Robert Cialdini, author of the brilliant book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (of which a milion copies have already been sold) gave an excellent presentation for the NIMA MDG (Marketing of services) at Dialogues house Amsterdam. He showed how you can use simple principles to spectacularly improve the results of of communication with customers, simply by applying factors of social psycology. He explained the six basic principles. Robert's talk was followed by Janine Himpers-Verhoeven, listening consultant at Altution. Here is my personal perspective on the priciples explained by Robert with additions from Janine.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

It would be nice to see these principles included in dialogue. It’s the way our brains work and will keep working. Brands will play on this to convince people in a dialogue.

Samsung has demonstrated a telephone with which it is possible to walk around in the virtual world Second Life. Users can blog in the real world and telephone the friends in Second Life. The telephone will be released onto the American market in the second half of 2008.

With Microsoft's click-able video every brand can make all videos click-able. As soon as the arrow appears there is more to be seen. When the consumer moves the mouse over the click-able object the information appears. Brands that already make extensive product videos can easily apply this technology immediately. Brands that call themselves publishers and are looking for a suitable advertising models can very probably make use of this. It is immediately relevant for the consumer: as soon as they see something that interests them they can immediately get more information if they wish.

The district council in Hengelo, the Netherlands, helps its citizens to claim the correct subsidies by providing a 'money searcher'. Via the computer they enter a wide range of details about pay, benefits, tax credits, rent, savings and insurance policies. Within 10 minutes they receive personalized advice.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The world is gradually changing. Instead of consumers, members or citizens being expected to trawl through all sorts of loose pieces of information, rules and procedures from various organizations the focus is now on the individual. Even then it is still too complicated. Personal finance brands will soon be able to automatically read all the customers’ details, interpret them and arrange all the appropriate subsidies (the consumer will only need to give permission). This sort of brand can immediately give good personal advice: do you want this, or that? And arrange what is required straight away. Only identification is needed, but by the time all this is possible identification will be able to be given in the blink of an eye.

Sony uses "People, Planet, Product" in its communication. Nicely chosen. You have the world. That's the Planet. As well as other life there are humans, People, mainly important to ourselves. Together we make products (the ultimate form of co-operation between all the people of the world). The phrase "the product of our labors" is well chosen. We consume the products. By consuming ever more we change the world, the circle is complete. Simple.

On this new site from South Park Studios you can watch all the installments of the popular American series for free. New installments are deleted after seven days and are then made available again after 30 days (for contractual reasons). Before each film a short advert is played. On the site the user can download ring tones and 'embeddable clips', play games and create their own South Park figure as well as a few other fun things.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

In this way the experience economy is slowly taking form. First we digitalise content. Now we put it on line. Soon we will discover that the majority of the views take place on line. Then we will discover that we can sell premium content in order later develop (interactive) content that would never have had a chance on television but is much more exciting, educational, fun, emotional and interesting than ever.

Related trends

• Experiences

Technical experts have succeeded in allowing people to steer their avatars in virtual worlds like Second Life by standing opposite a screen. By jumping, bending backwards, forwards, left or right it is possible to get the avatar to walk in the desired direction. It is also possible to fly by using certain movements of the hands. This is nice step forwards but there is still a long way to go.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Virtual worlds are becoming ever more real. In this example on a small screen in front of us later they will be projected life sized in front of us and, more importantly, around us. When we walk our avatar will walk in just the same way. When we speak our avatar will speak in exactly the same way (but in another language if necessary, or with a nice accent or with a gender switch if appropriate). When we look down at our own body whilst wearing the glasses we will see the avatars clothing rather than our own. Or no clothing if the avatar is naked. The virtual world is evolving into a more real world and our brains are having more trouble distinguishing real from virtual. Things are developing increasingly in that direction.

This screen shows a womans face that, in this instance, responds to a man. She reacts to the position of the mans face but also to his fingers: for example she closes her eyes if he strokes her eyelids. Her mouth also responds. She leaves if you stroke her nose, but returns with flowers.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is an art object, but soon this type of characters will enter into dialogue with consumers. Soon she will speak, ask questions and be an interesting conversational partner. That is where the technology is heading.

Humans think in images and concepts but not in written language. Very rarely does someone see something literally written in their thoughts. We dream in 'happenings'. Now that the virtual world has come into existence it is possible that in the long term (think 2050) a world will come into existence where 'reading' and 'writing' has evolved into a hobby. Something that people needed to do in the past but that's now just fun to learn, just like making clogs, crocheting or milking cows.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

At TravellersTV.com everything revolves arround video content based on holiday destinations. You see the continents on a click-able Google map. Once you have clicked a video over the continent begins. Then you can zoom in on a destionation and you will find related video chanels (in total there are 1200 destinations and 20 lifestyle tv channels). The videos often include supplementary text. In addition you find a buttons by every destination for more information over accommodation, food and drink, attractions, events, activities, transport and shoppig. You can rate, tag and comment on everything and you can also send the information on to others. But... it's still a beta version, sometimes things work and sometimes they don't, the content is far from complete but it is still well worth a look. A good concept with a lot of possibilities for good business models in the future...

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The future for this sort of travel coaching brands is in the completeness of the offer, the understanding of the consumer and earnings via affiliated programs. A good understanding of the consumer is central (where did you go other years? How was it? What do your friends do?), providing inspiration and when the customer says : ‘Yes, that’s what I want!’, also immediately arranging the booking with as few follow up steps as possible. Then the customer will only need to say yes before enjoying the anticipation. TravellersTV is the beginning.

In Japan the Loch Ness monster has been brought to life with the help of water and holographic effects. This has been realized for Sony as promotion for the film The Water Horse. The monster regularly comes to life giving passers by the fright of their lives.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

We see that holograms are being used more often. Fashion shows and presentations are given in holographic style and even live shows from dead artists are realized. Holograms will be used more and more frequently in shop windows or, for example, as company receptionists. These holograms will be able to enter into interactive dialogue with the consumer.

House specialist Immospy, known in the Netherlands as miljoenhuizen.nl, is now available in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian. By focusing on Europe (instead of individual countries) almost 4 million houses for sale are made available.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Europe is increasingly being treated as one market. Soon we will be able to arrange mortgages over international borders (why should the provider have to come from our own country?), choose Europe wide internet providers, Europe wide insurance companies and internationally operating home coaching brands. These stand by to help us enjoy living, wherever we are in the world. This is a step in that direction.

Via a widget, a tiny piece of software, the Rijksmuseum places a new art object on the sites of its users each day: every day a new art object, on users websites, on their profiles on social networking sites, or (as we have done here) on a their blogs. At the moment of posting there was an image of a painting of a man with angels wings, tomorrow there will be something else.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

In this way brands are able to provide inspiration every single day. In this case the theme is art, but it can of course be applied to any theme - style, health, sport, holidays, or relationships to name but a few. Paper daily calendars with a theme have been around for a long time and fulfill a daily ritual. Widgets can replace this and over time, by becoming more personal, will be more inspiring than ever before.