Hema at its new website has a prominent place for customers to give feedback: ‘tell us your opinion on hema.nl’. After clicking, a short survey follows (am, Dutch). Thus market research evolves into customer research. Brands will regularly ask their customers what they think of their services. Not at the first contact, but especially after a couple of contacts and experiences. And brands will remember the answers, and compare them: ‘last time you were critical about the speed of the website; do you think that has improved now?’ Thus questions will become more personal, and the answers more relevant. This is a small step in that direction.

Food entertainment brand Life & Cooking stimulates consumers to react at its website. Action ZomerToppers (Summer Toppers) during three months makes it possible for visitors of the Life&Cooking website to save for a ‘well-filled pack of groceries’.  Every week they can collect points for opening the newsletter, reacting to the forum, voting in the poll, participating in actions, adding recipes, or ‘going to a secret place on the website’ (mb, Dutch). Brands are having their brand coming out: the border between employees and consumers disappears. Employees are easier to reach, and at the same time consumers are rewarded for their contributions to the brand. Thus brands evolve which are supported by groups of people who don’t necessarily work for the same company. This is a small step in that direction.

Dutch foundation Stichting Ideele Reclame asks citizens for input on website www.umaghetzeggen.nl ("you may say it") At this website, the public can leave suggestions for informational and educational campaigns for next year (si, Dutch). Slowly but surely societal opinion forming processes get a different form. Sire used to filter signals out of society, translate these into a central message, which in the end was spread through mass communication. Now citizens get a voice in the choice of the themes for the campaigns. This will evolve into one big societal debate. Every theme will constantly be the topic of conversation. Everybody may say what they think. Everybody may make a videotape and send it in. Others may vote for it. But getting one central message across to everybody will be harder. To make sure we stay connected though, new forms will come into being. This experiment is a small step in that direction.

Temp agency Timing uses Tim as a spokesman. Tim answers all questions you have about work-related issues like illness, vacation days, or pension. Tim is the assistant at the website and directly opens the page answering your questions. And Tim finds jobs matching your wishes, and keeps you updated on any new vacancies. Besides, Tim can also just have a little chat with you. Tim can be found on the Timing website as well as in Live Messenger (MSN) if the user adds e-mail address tim@timing.nl (tc, Dutch). And thus, brand agents come to life. Tim engages in the dialogue with an almost real face, complete with emotions. Now on the PC, later also on TV or on the mobile phone. Now just for simple questions, but Tim will get smarter year by year. The birth of Tim, whose name is a great choice by the way, is a small step in that direction.

HypoSurface is a 3D surface, made up of triangles which can move separately. This way for example the word ‘decor’ can appear and walk over the surface. But also images of faces, objects, or artistic expressions can be seen on it. On HypoSurface‘s website you can see video clips about the technology as well as possible applications and concrete cases. There you can see an example of 3D air moving along a stationary BMW, which makes it look like the car is moving (fc). And thus again a screen evolves through which we can have an interface with the virtual world. In the future we will be able to send text messages to this screen. Then we can video conference, or play games. All complex 3D models like those made of water, air, or clouds, we can visualize with this screen. And a lot more applications will be developed for brands to use these types of screens to support the dialogue.

The biggest website for fashion accessories in the Netherlands, Fashionize.nl, uses a character in its communication. This character is used at the website as well as in the favicon (the graphic sign that appears in the address field and in the bookmark list). Now as an illustration, later this character will get a name, will become interactive, we can react to it and in the end it will evolve into a brand agent, with whom consumers will start their spoken dialogues through any possible display. This is a small step in that direction.

Dutch news brand eKudos shares its advertising income with users who actively contribute to the website (dc, Dutch). Brands are having a brand coming out. With that, the border between employees and consumers completely disappears. People who actively contribute to the brand are rewarded. Others on the contrary pay for the added value the brand delivers. This is a small step in that direction.

American readers now have the possibility to react to items from Google News. For the time being, only people or organizations involved in the article can react. To be able to react, people and organizations need to be registered, and Google checks them through domain name and/or e-mail address (dc, Dutch). Brands make it possible for consumers to react to items, to write reviews, and to rank reviews, and through that involve the consumer. More and more however they will check the consumer’s true identity. This way the value of the reviews gets higher though. The consumer will not be anonymous any more, but can still use a pseudonym. The brand however knows the real person behind the pseudonym. This is a small step in that direction.

Headset manufacturer Jabra introduces a 24-karat golden version of JX10. This version costs 249 Euro (mc, Dutch). Every item worn on the body is part of the personal identity. Any form of technology we carry has a symbolic function. Brands in this play a very important part. In the beginning the focus is on technique. After that, as brands want to distinguish themselves, the focus is on design. Headsets in the future will either more or less disappear in the ear (compare with contact lenses) or will be worn strikingly, like ear rings (compare to glasses). These first examples of design head sets mark that direction.

With a printer we can’t just put ink on paper, but also make a physical object out of plastic. This video shows how it works. The technique has been available for a while, but priced at $5,000 it is now available for consumers (nn). And so the virtual world enters the physical world. Anything we see in the virtual world we will be able to copy in a plastic 3D model. Even a movie star on TV. Or a friend’s funny face (or a different body part) on the web cam. Or a model from you future house you would like to see in 3D. It will be possible in just a few steps. Meanwhile, the world keeps turning. Generating a 3D model based on a couple of normal photographs will be completely normal. So if we have a vase we really like at home, we take a couple of pictures of it and a while later we have an exact copy of it. A child can do it. The sky is the limit..

In a personal surrounding on the Mitsubishi website, customers from now on can manage their own personal information and information about their car, read tips, and look through actions and offers. They also can request test drives and get reminders for inspections (am, Dutch). All brands start to communicate more personally. Everything they know about people is registered in the brand memory, which in turn is shared with the customer. In the future we will be able to consult our garage records, read or listen to all our contacts with the call center or garage, assemble our personal car, sell our car or even contact our own car. To check the mileage for example, or to upload some music. It all goes in the same direction..

Motorola is working on a pico projector: a very small projector which in the future can be built into mobile phones, and with which tomorrow’s consumer can project films and images on walls, floors, or even in the air (mc, Dutch). This way again a practical screen evolves through which consumers can interact with each other and with brands. If we have a question about a product, we keep our mobile phone close to it, the brand agent appears, we ask our spoken question and then get a complete demo in a video. And if the projection of the mobile phone is not good enough, we can always switch to a 3D projection through a different, close-by device. Or maybe we should project right on the product for a special effect. This development adds to that.

Scenes from computer game Archlord are embedded in the movie BenX. The movie makers say it is the first cinema movie ‘in which game and movie are completely integrated’. Many of the scenes come directly from the game. The movie is about Ben, an autistic boy whose life occurs in the world of online gaming for more than half of the time (dc, Dutch). This way the virtual world slowly comes into being. Everything is connected. In the future movies will only be trailers of video games, we will look for a nice space to call each other and from there will continue the game. Calling, radio, watching TV, surfing, gaming, telling time, navigating, it all blends together and that time comes closer every day.

Dutch website Zoover.nl, a site with more than 300,000 vacation reviews, offers tour operators like D-Reizen the possibility to place facts, figures and reviews on their own website. Travel agencies can use the Zoover technology under their own label. Through this module they can for example send questionnaires through e-mail, to ask customers for their experiences after their vacation. The travel agencies this way can research general findings, but also has to ask their customers to leave a Zoover review when coming home (em, Dutch). This way the relationship between personal brands and transaction brands slowly becomes clear. Zoover becomes the personal holiday brand, responsible for the contacts with the customer. And companies like tour operators, airlines and car rentals become transaction brands. Transaction brands which only through excellent achievements will survive in this landscape. This landscape in which the consumer dominates. This is very logical: after all, he is the one who pays. This is a step in that direction.

At Amazon Fresh, part of Amazon.com, consumers now can order fresh food. At the moment as a try-out just in Seattle. Delivery is very flexible. Through ‘DayBreak’ products are delivered on the doorstep by early morning, through ‘Daytime Delivery’ they are delivered the next day in a 1-hour time slot chosen by the consumer, and through ‘Local Pick-Up’ consumers can pick up their order the same day (em, Dutch). Very slowly we start to also order our daily groceries online. However, it is very hard to break through existing patterns, and for people who have been grocery shopping for years and years it is hard to break through this pattern. But the last ten years a new generation has come into being that thinks and acts online completely. The teenagers from then are today’s people in their twenties. That generation ask themselves why they would haul a case of beer themselves? And that generation now has money too. The delivery remains a challenge. Now it still takes a day, in the future we will receive our order within a couple of hours. ‘Normal’ grocery shopping stays, but gets a different meaning. This is a small step in that direction.