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At the lab, we spend a lot of time talking about and studying consumer trends.  I think it’s fair to assume that by consumers, we usually mean humans; however, I am increasingly seeing the same consumer trends enter the pet industry.

Take curated subscrition shopping, like Birch Box (for make-up) and Nature Box (for healthy snacks). Both businesses are monthly subscription models and deliver a box of hand selected sample-size items.  Enter Bark Box— the same concept, but with treats and toys for your dog.  Samples are nothing new, but I’d argue the idea of paying for a sample is.  Many brands, especially in beauty and food, are accustomed to giving out samples of new products; the idea that consumers would willingly pay for the opportunity to sample promotional items is pretty novel.  I think this speaks to both an eagerness for discovery, paired with an ever-increasing strain on people’s time.

Another trend you are likely familiar with is the quantified self, which is simplest to explain by calling out example products like Nike+, Nike Fuel Band, Fitbit, and Withings. Now we have dog pedometers, which help keep your dog in shape along side you — important as 54% of America’s pets are overweight.  Even if your pet isn’t putting on the pounds, you’re probably dying to know what your pup is up to while you’re away at work (I am!); never fear,  Puppy Tweet has you covered, producing a wearable device for your dog that auto-tweets when he is active.

Think the sharing economy hasn’t transfered into the pet-sphere?  You’d be wrong.  Just like people can use Airbnb to find a real person’s home to rent while vacationing, Dog Vacay provides a real home for your pet, a welcome alternative to a kennel.

There are also many pet-related companies who are fully integrating technology into their work. One of our colleagues has her dog walked by a NYC-based company called Swifto, which places a GPS on her dog’s collar, so she always knows he’s actually been walked, and where.  Not only that, the walker’s phone is programmed to automatically text when the little guy has done his business. And I thought getting the occasional picture of my pup on his walk was high-tech!

Sure, pets are still not going to be considered as target audiences on media plans, but it’s safe to say their humans are making trendy decisions and purchases on their behalf (and not just sweaters!).

I can’t help but think we have entered a new phase of technology, a world where the only thing faster than speed  and acceleration of technological development, is the speed an acceleration of our expectations of technology. It’s a bizarre world where  it’s never been more hard to amaze people, and it’s frequently the case that linear improvements are disappointing and only new paradigm shifts can generate real excitement.

We should be amazed right now. We have devices that can do things we could barely dream about 5 years ago, but yet rather than feeling routinely amazed, we often get a more significant feeling of frequent disappointment. I am more guilty that most, I proclaimed widely after getting an iPhone 5 that is was basically a waste of space, while begrudgingly acknowledging it also happened to be, pretty much the best phone ever made in the entire world.

So with all this incredible technology and when we look around us we see frowns and not smiles. The small child who looks perplexed after using an iPad that the 50 inch OLED TV in their parents house doesn’t work when they try to swipe between channels.

To me, as a tech loving 33^rd year old who should relish the in seat screen on jetblue flights but instead compares the screen to an iPad and finds it lacking. It’s a disease that’s spreading, it’s moving away from tech leaders and the young and gradually towards older and less involved people, my parents are now fully satisfied by Apple TV and Spotify but they are not amazed, like they were when the iPod came out.

It wasn’t like this before. My $800 mini disc recorder that I saved for weeks to buy was something that did things I could not dream about and stunned me for years. I never looked at a DVD recorder and thought it was lacking, if I got on a 767 and it had my own TV screen, it was like a gift from above. Something has happened to me where I find most things around me rather lacking.

Now we live in an age of technological entitlement, the moment a technology is available in one place we expect it to be employed immediately, ubiquitously, and without error. When Dyson vacuums and iPods are designed so beautifully, why does my Microwave have 39 buttons, 8 of which are only there to be used to change the time?  In a world where HBO go can look so beautiful, how is it that the Time Warner remote control and user interface looks like something from 2001? If Google maps can aggregate the position of every single Gmaps user, find out their speed, aggregate this and show me traffic speeds on every road around me, how is it that the MTA in New York can’t tell me when the next train is due?

In the words of Louis CK , talking about wifi on planes  : “How quickly is it, that the worlds owes us something, we didn’t know existed only 5 seconds ago”

 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8m5d0_everything-is-amazing-and-nobody-i_fun?fbc=752#.UMkJV6XZXww

We are all spoilt, we expect to be in control of everything, for immediate satisfaction and personalization. I have a feeling this sense of amazement of what is possible, but disappointment about how it’s implemented and distributed will be a theme to many of my blog posts. I hope it seems more like a reflection my anticipation and excitement of the potential of new technology more than it seems like I’m a entitled idiot with first world problems.

There has been a surge of innovation in camera technology, particularly in smartphones.  The amount of tech built into these tiny devices is staggering. Take the iPad camera, for example, which records video in 1080p HD or the Galaxy SIII which can take approximately 20 photos in 10 seconds. These developments have armed one billion people with the ability to take photos and share them in an instant. It has sparked a massive craze that has seen a company with zero revenue sell for one billion dollars and every new site look more and more like Pinterest. There has been so much advancement, that it is easy to sit back in awe. But what if these cameras became more sophisticated? What if their resolution tripled?

We’d have some really pretty pictures.

But we’d also have a lot else. There are a host of new technologies from augmented reality to eyetracking that can do incredible things with precise cameras. Yet, the camera specifications limit their scope to very controlled environments and even with expensive equipment, variables like lighting and range play a major factor. Given these circumstances, their application cannot hit critical mass for the time being. But imagine if all of these capabilities could be enabled through a consumer camera on your PC or phone? Imagine all your photos being autotagged based on the surroundings. Imagine being able to see how a product actually fits on you virtually from your webcam. Imagine unlocking your car when you pass by a camera on the side mirror. We are on the precipice of all of this, but we just need a little more advancement. Easier said than done.

There is clearly an identity crisis online. When the average individual opens their browser, they could be one of tens if not hundreds of users. I could be PollockJ07 on Twitter or JPYankees22 on Flickr or even RubyTuesdays351 on that fake email I point spam to. People have so many accounts it is often dizzying to keep them all straight. Just think about the last time you struggled to remember a login or password. At the core of this dilemma is the proliferation of media and every new mobile, location-based, visual social network created only exacerbates the problem. With more and more media channels available, the ability to maintain a singular identity is simply impossible.

It is a nightmare for marketers and there are big bucks being invested in tackling the problem. Reaching the right audience is critical for brands and we’ve gotten pretty sophisticated at it. Marketers can now leverage a wealth of user data from historical location to purchase history to social keywords. Others work toward identifying users across devices to target an individual on mobile based on their desktop behavior.  It’s all pretty impressive, but the Holy Grail lies in the information that is shared across user accounts, from Netflix to Instagram.  The stuff that is opt-in.

Facebook is banking on this and the amount of ad products and dollars spent is staggering. I constantly struggle to keep up with the changes to their platform, all made to accommodate this massive effort to monetize. Somewhere, in a remote part of the world, there must be a cottage industry built around keeping up with every little tweak because the power in their data is that massive. But Facebook can’t solve everything. The social giant is only a fraction of your online footprint, albeit a very big fraction. Actually it is about 1/6.

What really needs to happen is a unification process, whereby I am Jack Pollock wherever I go. This would require a single sign-on, perhaps enabled by entering my social security number or via facial recognition or maybe through a bioacoustics system that transfers data through your bones.

But let’s think about users first.

Do users really want to have one digital handle that has such a firm grounding in reality? That would prevent me from posting about 90% of my comments on Reddit and I probably never would have gotten a Myspace in the first place. At least that is my initial inclination, but upon second thought, the amount of data that we are willing to share is quite surprising. Consider Nike+ that shares your runs to the world or Jawbone UP that records your sleep patterns. Even the amount of photo-sharing—over 300 million a day—would frighten many a few years ago.

People do enjoy representing themselves online. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google all rely on this. They have built their platforms on maintaining an accurate representation of you. Facebook even created the Cover photo after seeing users violate policy by posting things, instead of faces as their profile pictures. Now with the change, people can boldly share their love for cats and sunsets while still remaining compliant. So there is some interest in self-identifying.

The process of unifying your online presence is not going to happen overnight, and maybe they’ll never be one system, but we are certainly heading there. The more these channels converge, the more opportunities brands have to reach consumers on a one-to-one level. This will likely come with a multitude of privacy concerns as consumers become offended or scared at the amount of information shared. Like when Target figured out a girl was pregnant before her father. It will no doubt be a rocky transition.

Yet, maybe some good will arise as well. By giving brands permission to access your data and preferences, you receive a highly personalized web experience in which every piece of content is tailored to you. Suddenly, the banner to your left is actually a pair of shoes you’d like to buy. The interstitial video is of a movie trailer that’s similar to what you just watched on Hulu. Perhaps a brand gives you a free song to an album you listened to on Spotify or rewards you for a 5k you ran over the weekend. Brands want love and they are willing to do a lot of good to get it, provided you let them in.