Category: Media Evolution

Through mobile application CheapGas consumers now can get information on cheap gas while they are on the road, filtered by brand preferences. (cz). We connect everything. Product information used to be hard to get, now we get it presented personally and currently, wherever we are. Later our navigation system will take this into account: if you have to get gas, you better take route X or Y. In the end, personal travel brands will help you get from A to B, taking all possible circumstances into account: your personal circumstances, your financial circumstances, AND the situation for all possible forms of transport. This is a small step in that direction.

NS International has placed a short interactive commercial in the online Sky Radio broadcasting. Whoever listened to Sky Radio through the special Sky Radio Music player, saw an advertisement which lead to an action site after clicking. On air, a different commercial was played. NS International is the first to experiment with this new kind of advertising (em, Dutch). Radio also becomes interactive. Now in a special player, later in every spot we choose to listen to the radio. We will be able to (verbally) react to anything we hear, to get more information or to undertake action. By that time interrupting commercials will have disappeared, however we will fully start dialogues with brands. But only when we feel like it. This is a small step in that direction.

My Horeca TV will add more than 15.000 Dutch hotel rooms to its narrow casting network this year.  My Horeca TV also develops its own programs (em, Dutch). This way, hotel rooms screens gradually become interactive. Now the content grows explosively, later we will make our own decisions of what we watch, wherever in the world we are, and whatever brands we want to be in touch with. Our mobile phone will act as remote control. This is a small step in that direction.

MSNBC.com, the American news brand, introduced a pre-movie video game in which the audience directly interacts with the screen while live news is incorporated. It was a kind of arcade game consisting of a screen of little bars and a ball that can shoot the bars. The bars were filled with live news from msnbc.com while the ball was controlled by the collective actions of the audience. If people generally moved to the right more, the ball went to the right as well (bx) This way the media start to react to us. In the future we will see people in the theater live projected in the movie, or we see avatars in it that are not physically present, and we start carrying out orders in the city, where we meet audiences of other movie theaters. The movie then is only a side issue. And brands can offer this kind of content. We will call these ‘branded experiences’. See the video clip below.

At Singapore Airport you can find some interactive shop-windows. When touching the window, a ‘globe of films’ is projected. You can control it by touching the window again. The globe can turn in any direction, and by touching one of the films on the globe, a video is started on a plasma TV next to it. (fc). This way the shop-window becomes more and more interactive, and our experiences become more intense. This is a simple but effective way to do that.

French company T-Immersion has developed a technology to add 3D objects to live video streams. (fc). In this picture the newspaper is photographed, then the video starts playing, and 3D avatars interact with the newspaper. And the video shows more. The virtual world becomes a screen over the real world. In a while, we will walk over the Colosseum in Rome, point our camera, and have a movie replayed in our glasses, our hand phone of any other possible display, exactly from the position we’re in at that moment. Thus a completely new dimension evolves.

On the internet, the latest KNVB cup final soccer could be watched through four camera positions: Player Cam, Top Cam, Goal Cam, and the Directors Cut. The latter showed the edited images of the regular tv signal: for tv, the game was registered by 26 cameras (em, Dutch). We completely imitate the physical world in the virtual world. Real time, live! At the moment we are still limited to fixed cameras; later we will be able to get any image we want from all cameras, including those of fans in the stadium, real time. We then kind of fly through the stadium with our own camera. Or we fly with somebody else who knows what to pay attention to (with a director or a directing consumer). At this moment, in replay through the last minute or through a game played ten years ago. It gets more and more real. This is a small step in that direction.

All 700,000 companies listed on the business pages of the Dutch phone directory telefoongids.nl are now also listed on Google Earth (em, Dutch). In the virtual world, we completely imitate the physical world. In this building phase we connect everything. This way we will be able to travel everywhere, see everything, experience everything. Like it is real. This is a small step in that direction.

Children can now stroll in Barbie Girls, a world in which they can design their own characters, decorate their own rooms, and try on clothes. In the cinema they can see Mattel commercials with which they can earn b-bkucks, points to be used for furniture in their rooms, accessories, outfits and more. Other Mattel products have special codes which reveal even more content. Shortly there will be a “doll-inspired handheld portable device”, making a direct connection with the content and activities at BarbieGirls.com, like adopting a virtual pet (mt). This way, the virtual world slowly comes to life. We connect everything to each other. In the future, if we change our physical Barbie into a different dress, we will see that even our Barbie avatar has changed. And the dirty dress will, complete with stains, hang in the virtual wardrobe. We will be able to design a new Barbie, make a holographic projection of it in our own house or somebody else’s house, and have it manufactured should we wish to do so.

In this video Celine Dion sings a duet with a holographic Elvis Presley. It looks stunningly real (mf, Dutch). We make the virtual world more and more real, and layer it over the physical world. This way we travel in time and space, and experience whatever we want (as long as we pay for it). However, we only have one life. The right choices for the right experiences in the right order, that will be the biggest challenge. Personal brands will help us here.

Through snap.com website owners have been able to show an automated preview from the website that will be shown after clicking (on this site we have been using it for a couple of months). This is now replaced by Snap Shots™, with which much more specific information can be shown. Try this: Information about Einstein for example (through Wikipedia), information about a specific fund like Google at the stock exchange (through Yahoo), a video clip about the very innovative Adidas Store in Paris and the like for movies (IMDB), audio (*.mp3) and products (Amazon.com) (snap). This way, the virtual world slowly takes shape. Currently the author still has to program a hyper link, in the near future we can point to what we want and get more information on command. We point our fingers and ask an oral question: What kind of bird is that? Who was Martin Luther King? Where can I order those boots? Our surroundings (read: personal brands) will answer all those questions. This is a small step in that direction.

Through Intellifit’s newest scanner we can now get automated brand advice. You are in a clothing shop, you step in a scanner (with all your clothes on), you push a button, step out of the scanner and your advice is right there. With 200.000 measuring points the form of your body has been determined, right through all your clothes. Your sizes are printed on a small card (via fc). This is the starting point for personal fashion brands. Once they also start recording our skin structure, eyes, hair and lifestyle, then we can get real personal fashion advice. Video clip below.

The Holocaust Museum Washington now shows videos of the civil war in Darfur at Google Earth. Pictures and reports of ordinary people can also be seen there. We imitate the real world, real time, in the virtual world. In the future we will be able to experience everything from a distance, while feeling we are really there. Today, last week, one hundred years ago, a mix of those, or even in the future. This is a small step in that direction.

Google Labs are testing their Voice Local Search, with which consumers can select a local service through voice recognition. When you call 1-800-466-4411, first needs to state the city and (US) state, then the name of the company (Giovanni’s Pizza), or the category (pizza). Sometimes you’ll get more choices which you can all respond to through speech. In the end you are connected (for free), or you’ll receive a text message with the contact details. It works pretty good already, although Google sometimes does make mistakes in the voice recognition. It is a very difficult process, but step by step brands make the leap to understand our spoken word. This is a small step in that direction.

At Google Maps it is now possible to add text, audio and video, and share these with others (demo). Anything that exists, has existed before, or could exist in a fantasy, we record and share with others. We experience nostalgia, learn about an environment, or get inspiration. Facts and fiction are intertwined. If in the future for example online encyclopedia Wikipedia connects to Google Maps, we will see every historical, biological and geological fact on the map, and we can see the world change through a time line. And with an astronomic connection we can see it at any existing or non-existing celestial body. Thus we scroll through time and space, through facts and fiction, in a virtual world which often maybe resembles the real world, and definitely feels more and more real. A worlds in which brands are naturally present, like in the physical world. This is another step in that direction.