By Jonny Lupsha, News Writer

A new app called Tudder allows farmers to select matches for their cattle, Reuters reported. Bovine profile pages offer information such as milk yield and calving potential so farmers can browse and buy the cows based on their ranching preferences. The app is part of the “Third Wave” of the internet on which our daily lives depend.

With Tudder—a portmanteau of Tinder and udder—farmers can swipe left or right on their phone screens as cattle appear on it depending on their interest in the animal. When they find a match, they can proceed to a page on the website SellMyLivestock to learn more about the animal, including its price and availability for an in-person inspection before purchase. Tudder is further proof of the increasingly tech-driven farm industry, which is embracing the “Third Wave” of widespread technology intended for daily use. However, many people aren’t familiar with the term “Third Wave” or what it means.

Two Kinds of Waves

“Futurist Alvin Toffler’s book The Third Wave was published in 1980,” said Steve Case, Co-Founder of AOL. “In his book, Toffler explained that the first wave was the agricultural revolution, when hunter-gatherer societies learned to cultivate crops and use animals for food and labor—and the second wave was the Industrial Revolution.” The third revolutionary wave, Toffler predicted, would be the “Information Age.”

However, Case has lain the case for three revolutionary waves of the internet itself. “The first wave of the internet, which took place from 1985 to around 1999, was about building the infrastructure and foundation for an online world,” he said. This infrastructure included companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Sprint, AOL, and IBM, which built the original devices meant to connect people online. Case explained that during this time, the world was still so skeptical of the internet that many saw no use for it at all.

Once the public was sold on the idea of the internet, its second wave began. “The second wave, from 2000 to 2015, was all about building on top of the internet,” Case said. “Search engines like Google made it easier to explore the web; Amazon and eBay revolutionized how we shop.” The second wave of the internet also brought us social media like Facebook and Twitter. When smartphones first released in the mid-2000s, they created an entirely separate market of countless apps and mobile purchases.

Finally, the third wave of the internet involves the full integration of the internet into our daily lives, Case said. “I’m talking about an era where nearly everything we do—the products we buy, the services we use, the industries we work in—are both connected to and transformed by the internet.”

What We Can Expect in the Third Wave

Case sees the third wave of the internet as one “where the economic sectors that matter the most to our lives are completely transformed by internet connectivity: health care, education, transportation, food, finance, travel, all the big ones,” he said. He emphasized that he meant this internet integration would play a major role in each of these industries. With regards to food, he cited cashless restaurants, order-online grocery stores, and DNA-analyzed dietary plans. For education, Case mentioned students not only learning on tablets, but also on apps that analyze and utilize how each student learns best.

“Think about it more broadly as ‘The Internet of Everything,’” Case said. “For consumers, this is an unbelievably exciting time, where our lives are about to get smoother and faster and safer.” If apps like Tudder are any indication, he may be right.

Steve Case contributed to this article. Mr. Case is one of America’s best-known and most accomplished entrepreneurs and a pioneer in making the internet a part of everyday life. In 1985, Mr. Case co-founded America Online (AOL), which became the world’s largest and most valuable internet company. In 2000, he negotiated one of the largest mergers in business history, bringing together AOL and Time Warner.