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If you take a look at digital trends, we’ve slowly gone through the human senses: touch is now status quo in the form of taps and swipes, and visual has been key in the rise of Instagram and Facebook’s new Timeline format. Next up? Our guess: sound.

It’s been subtle, but sound has been quietly taking over the spotlight with every new product release. Facebook’s breakout integration was Spotify, which saw a 56% usage increase a mere week after Facebook’s F8 conference.  The iPhone 4S’s new gee-whiz feature was Siri, which can do everything from recommend the best burger within a 5 block radius to telling your friend you’re running 10 minutes late. Big non-sound companies are also getting into the game, too: Vimeo and Google, formerly primarily video and search sites, are releasing their own music stores, and e-commerce giant Amazon just bought up a voice recognition start-up. Even music sites are being kicked into high gear—Soundcloud, for instance, recently hit 5 million users and received a wave of funding from Ashton Kutcher.

So what’s the deal with sound? What advantages could voice recognition and music offer? One notion: whereas touchpads revolutionized communication with its new approach to keyboard functionality, voice recognition could conceivably revolutionize commerce with its efficiency and integration with mobile device.

“Siri, what’s the cheapest flight from JFK to LAX right before Thanksgiving?” translates into booking a flight via m-commerce.

Spotify’s notification that my music snob friend is listening to Justice’s new album on loop translates into me buying the track via e-commerce.

And that’s just what could happen right now. In the future, as more devices employ sound recognition, we could conceivably download books to our Kindles, bookmark a killer pair of heels at Barney’s for later purchase, or make a dinner reservation for two at the new yakitori place downtown thanks to Yelp reviews.  Certainly Siri is far from perfect (it’s in Beta, after all), and there’s been some backlash against Spotify, but the technology’s widespread adoption promises something extraordinary in the future.  Turn on, tune in – and we’ll see what’s the next thing to drop.