Why do we think this trend is ready to take off? Well, the neces- sary enablers are now all in place: required hardware and soft- ware are ubiquitious, there's ample availability of affordable stor- age space, blogging mentality is hitting the masses, and some of the major 'new economy' brands are getting in on the game, prom- ising mass LIFE CACHING products at mass prices. We're talking Nokia, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Samsung and many more. All of this is putting in place an infrastructure for LIFE CACHING that will soon have GENERATION C and 'Generation Digital' caching every second of their existence. A brief, random selection of some of the latest LIFE CACHING initiatives, to get you going: Trends are often a manifestation of new enablers unlocking exist- ing human needs. Whenever you witness a revolutionary technol- ogy, changing societal values, or a rise in prosperity, expect an emerging consumer trend to be around the corner. Point in case: collecting! Human beings (fueled by a need for self- worth, validation, control, vanity, even immortality) love to collect and store possessions, memories, experiences, in order to create personal histories, mementoes of their lives, or just to keep track for practical reasons. And with the experience economy still gain- ing ground -- with consumers more often favoring the intangible over the tangible -- collecting, storing and displaying experiences is ready for its big moment. Why? Well, thanks to the onslaught of new technologies and tools, from blogging software to memory sticks to high definition camera phones with lots of storage space and other 'life capturing and storing devices', an almost biblical flood of 'personal content' is being collected, and waiting to be stored to allow for ongoing trips down memory lane (see also our GENERATION C trend). TRENDWATCHING.COM has dubbed this emerging mega trend 'LIFE CACHING': collecting, storing and displaying one's entire life, for private use, or for friends, family, even the entire world to peruse. The LIFE CACHING trend owes much to bloggers: ever since writing and publishing one's diary has become as easy as typing in www.blogger.com, millions of people have taken to digi- tally indexing their thoughts, rants and God knows what else; all online, disclosing the virtual caches of their daily lives, exciting or boring. Next came moblogging, connecting camera phones to online diaries, allowing not only for more visuals to be added to blogs, but also for real-time, on the go postings of experiences and events. And that's still just the beginning. www.trendwatching.com 1 / 9 • Nokia just launched its Lifeblog service: software that automati- engaging in LIFE CACHING. In Google's own words: "Don't throw cally arranges all messages, images, notes, videos and sound anything away: 1,000 megabytes of free storage so you'll never clips that consumers capture with their mobile phones, starting need to delete another message." Other email services like Hot- with the Nokia 6620 Imaging Phone, which comes with a 1.1 mail, Yahoo and Rediff are already following suit, piling up the megapixel camera.* extra hundreds of megabytes. TRENDWATCHING.COM expects services like Gmail to morph into the digital equivalent of self stor- Nokia's Lifeblog software runs on a PC: when a phone is con- age spaces now found in most big cities. nected to the machine, it will download all the content stored on the handset. It then populates a timeline with the information, ar- ranging it chronologically, (with tags annotating when and where • Even more on storage. One of the life- something was done, with help from codes that uniquely identify lines of LIFE CACHING: from Malaysia cell phone base stations). A full version of the software package to Hong Kong, key cord memory sticks costs approximately EUR 30/USD 37. (Source: BBC). and mini-MP3 players are the new Asian fashion accessory: with sticks storing up Note: as you know from our previous editions, 3.1 megapixel to 1 GB of content, consumers can (and phones are now being sold in Japan. It also doesn't hurt that some do!) wear their entire 'digital life files' hard disks have shrunk to smaller than an inch, yet are still capa- around their neck, from music to movies ble of storing many gigabytes: the phone is rapidly becoming a to documents to photos to presenta- mature storage and capturing device! tions. It's LIFE CACHING going mobile: with sticks, MP3 players and camera • In true LIFE CACHING fashion, Samsung's current "Show Your phones boasting increased storage ca- World" US ad campaign urges camera phone users to record their pacities, functionality, and quality, con- daily lives and turn them into movies. In one of the first commer- sumers will soon be able to show, play and share their entire LIFE cials, a perky actress shoots her way through a love story, a rain with whomever, wherever. storm, flambéed meals, a fashion show, a boardwalk game ar- cade, a hip night spot and a hotel balcony overlooking the Empire • And last but not least, let's not forget Apple's mega-popular iPod: State Building. In Samsung's own words: "the most vibrant way to a new version in the works may contain up to 50 Gigabyte of stor- capture and share life experiences with family and friends." age space, which means even the biggest music fanatics will be (Source: AdRants.) Expect the camera phone to become the cen- able to forever build, store and carry their entire life collection of terpiece of LIFE CACHING around the globe. music (and soon video and data?), in a device the size of a pack of cigarettes. Next? Europe, where Apple's iTunes music store recently launched in the UK, France and Germany. Now what if • Microsoft's SenseCam (prototype the iPod would turn into a camera phone with some help from, shown right) is a badge-sized wear- let's say, Sony? Further integration with iLife, Apple's ever expand- able camera that captures up to ing software suite for GENERATION C, also makes sense. Let the 2000 VGA images per day onto LIFE CACHING battle begin! 128Mbyte FLASH memory. In addition, sensor data such as movement, light level and tempera- ture is recorded every second. This is similar to an aircraft "Black Box" accident recorder but miniaturised for the human body. The SenseCam is part of Microsoft's LifeBits program, an experiment in lifetime storage. • With Google's Gmail setting new standards for massive free storage of email messages, files and everything else, expect free OPPORTUNITIES online storage to become the new craze for millions of consumers www.trendwatching.com 2 / 9 This LIFE CACHING introduction is just the tip of the iceberg. APRIL 2005 | It's been about six months since we first introduced Obviously, providing consumers with the software, hardware and our LIFE CACHING trend, and ever since, new spottings and in- storage space to start building, unlocking and showcasing their sights have poured in: it certainly didn't hurt that a lot of newspa- 'lifelogs' should be high on your priority list if your business is in pers and magazines around the world featured LIFE CACHING in any way related to the world of photography, publishing, video, their lifestyle and tech sections, adding their own spin to the phe- music, SMS, instant messaging, search, blogging, cell phones, nomenon. email, memory sticks, PDAs etc etc etc. (And don't forget the vast amounts of non-digital, non-organised LIFE CACHING artifacts So time for an update: first of all, even though LIFE CACHING waiting to be digitized: think millions of shoeboxes, photo albums seems very much about technology and virtual lifestyles (we & framed photos, home movies/videos, old bundles of letters, apologize upfront for the number of tech gadgets in this update!), CDs, DVDs, bookshelves and filing cabinets!) its behavioral drivers are nothing new. At LIFE CACHING's core is the need to collect experiences, which ideally convert into stories, But there's much more: understanding consumers' gradual move which in return enable human beings to engage others: whether towards collecting and storing experiences instead of goods (es- it's to please or to convince or to gain status. Oh, and let's not pecially in mature economies), is crucial, whether you sell luxury forget that in our individualized, 'everyone counts' society, ALL handbags or manufacture cars. Basically, LIFE CACHING is what consumers have a story. This in addition to the more prosaic use- happens after you've figured out how to provide your customers fulness of easy access to one's digital assets. with an experience. So how are you enabling your customers to make the experience last? Yes, TRENDWATCHING.COM knows With that in mind, our new LIFE CACHING spottings can be di- that this could be an entire business book in itself, so stay tuned vided into two categories: those that help capture and store expe- ;-) riences, and those that help to manage and mold the various stored elements into collections, and to create a subsequent story. LIFE CACHING and storage & capturing Buzz of the moment? Storage, and the abundance of it. To quote Microsoft Research's Rick Rashid: "you can store every conversa- tion you've ever had in a terabyte. You can store every picture you've ever taken in another terabyte. And the Net Present Value of a terabyte is USD 200." It doesn't stop there: think about the implications of LIFE CACH- ING for 1:1 marketing (we feel an update of our COUNTER- GOOGLING trend coming on!), because gaining permission to access a customer's lifelog could be marketing's holy grail.