The evolution of media and its interaction with business trends has gone through several waves. If it was Web 1.0 with the introduction of the internet, then it was Web 2.0 with the explosion of social media.

Both these waves of innovation revolutionized the virtual world and gave new meanings to how we live, shop, and consume content online. While Web 1.0 went from a platform of communication exchange to a full-fledged commercial medium with online portals offering everything from groceries to guns, Web 2.0 revolutionized how we connect to each other and use social media to spread news and information around.

The latest innovation that is happening is the mobile wave and without calling it Web 3.0 since it is outside of the traditional realms of the internet, it can be said to be nothing less than a complete overhaul of the way in which we connect to others and view the world.

The mobile wave is the wave of the future and it has been helped greatly with the introduction of the Smartphones like Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy Series. These Smartphones that go beyond mere web enabling of the gadgets and instead, have the apps that are unique and specific to user requirements would change the way we consume content and shop using these Smartphones.

Indeed, society and business are in for an overhaul as the mobile wave promises to take the virtual revolution one-step ahead by providing users with the ability to transact without having to use physical cash or even credit cards.

The point here is that retailers like Starbucks in the United States and Airtel in India have already introduced the concept of mobile currency that enables the users of m-commerce to buy and sell goods and services without the need for credit card and other intermediaries.

Of course, currency cannot be eliminated completely and what this mobile commerce promises is that the intermediate layer between a shopper and the product that in Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 used to be the payment gateway would be eliminated by using a special form of credits that are linked to one’s bank account and other deposits of currency. With this, the mobile wave heralds a new era where in the future, by means of iris scanning and optical code recognition, consumers would be able to seamlessly move from retailers to transport to workplace environments where everything is connected by the emerging mobile technologies.

Considering that the present generation uses Smartphones in a major way, it would not be too much into the future when we would see all of this happening. Indeed, as the experiences of the QRS code scanning and use by consumers for their shopping and information needs shows, the mobile technologies have the potential to remake the way businesses and consumers interact.

Finally, as with any technology or innovation, there is a bit of hype here. However, when one cuts through the jargon and the propaganda, one still gets the feeling that the potential for businesses and consumers is indeed huge with the mobile wave.