Have you ever wandered into one of those futuristic homes at Disneyland or some other amusement park? They’re always filled with robotic servants and elaborate Rube Goldberg machines that make you eggs and bacon.

So when a group of E.B. Laners was recently invited to tour IPG’s Emerging Media Lab in Los Angeles, a part of me was expecting to walk through the door and into the insta-wardrobe doohickey from the Jetsons. But what we got, instead, was a real glimpse into the next-stage gadgets, platforms and media opportunities – all narrated by their impressive group of media professionals.

Each room in the lab was geeked out with the latest technology – from the bedroom to the family room to the kitchen. A few of us made it a point to call out the TV monitor on the refrigerator.

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When I entered the media business 13 years ago, it was a totally different world. I was a Media Assistant at DDB, and we surrounded ourselves with GRP spreadsheets, Reach/Frequency calculators, and MRI analyses galore. Online was a medium that wasn’t even measured in syndicated sources and our Administrative Assistants were still typing our memo letters to communicate with our clients.

Now that we’ve flash-forwarded to 2009, I don’t think I need to convince anyone out there just how much media and the ad industry has changed. For me, this has been a career that has gotten more exciting by the day. And, frankly, this is only the beginning.

That’s what leads me to keep my own personal rating system – the What’s Hot in Media (WHIM) Scale. It includes predictive ratings for how hot I think a new application will perform for:

• Advertisers that evaluate per brands.
• Consumers and their lives in general.

1) You Tube is set to premiere its first movie on it’s site. “Home,” a film about the environment, is expected to launch in the next few months and will open the door to long form advertisers on the site.

2) Facebook is debuting a new Payment System. Users will be able to purchase “credits” to buy virtual goods, allowing Facebook to evolve into an e-commerce center that will be less reliant on advertising.

3) AdMob is launching new ad formats for the new iPhone 3.0 on 7/1. The new units will provide more direct links to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Agree or disagree? Know of some other media vehicles that need evaluation? Let me know in the comments below.