Through readmymood people can now add a flower to their website or web log, which automatically displays their mood. This is based on the word choice in the texts. My blog at the moment of writing has a high score on 'angry, sad, businesslike, and male', and less high on 'happy, cheerful, emotional, female, and in love'. Therefore a somewhat plain flower, which can be totally different tomorrow. That's why I keep a small archive of the flowers in the extended posting. The latest analysis can also be seen at the Readmymood site, and these often are much more colorful.

This development shows how we get better and better at the automatized reading of emotions. It already happened in 'text mining' and 'voice mining', based on which customer care centers can predict the behavior of consumers. Now it is also available for the consumers. Social coaching brands will assist us in anticipating the emotions of the other, and earlier or later they will be better at that than the average person. Maybe we will call that 'emotion mining'. A related development already is called 'facial coding'. This type of brands then will be essential for functioning in society. As essential as the phone is today. This development contributes to that.

• in Dutch