Welcome to another weekly update extravaganza!  After a few initial snow flurries here last night, it’s now just a rainy and fog-filled morning here in Boston, but we still can’t complain because it’s Friday!

We saw a lot of buzz this week around near field communication technology and what that means for the future of smartphones and mobile payments.  According to a new edition of Deloitte’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions report, 200 million smartphones will have built-in NFC technology by the end of 2012!  Check out some of the articles we were reading this week and let us know what caught your eye!

1. What do you do at AisleBuyer?

I am a Senior Software Engineer.

2. What is your favorite part of working for AisleBuyer?

The people and the technology.

3. What is your favorite mobile app and why?

GPS, I guess.  I cannot live without GPS.

4. If you could only drink one beer for the rest of your life, which one would you choose?

I don’t drink, I’m allergic to it.

5. If you had your own hot sauce, what would you name it?

The King.

6. Of the AisleBuyer team, who would you like to be Beirut partners with the most? The least?

The most:  Well, I guess anyone who doesn’t take competition too seriously.

The least:  Someone who’s too serious.

7. Would you rather live the rest of your life without music or dessert of any kind?

Dessert.

8. Describe your personal style in one word.

Relaxed.

9. Describe your perfect Saturday afternoon in exactly seven words.

Tennis, mountain biking, wind surfing, beach, hiking.

10. Would you rather have hair that never stops growing or fingernails and toenails that never stop growing and why?

Fingernails and toenails because they look scary.

11. Make up a word that describes or embodies your life philosophy.

Geehoo

12. If you were a superhero, what would your super power and name be?

I want to be able to fly and avoid all the traffic—I wish that every day!  “Traffic Free”

13. What is your guilty pleasure TV show?

I like Two And A Half Men.

Happy Friday, folks!  It’s a beautiful snowy day here in Boston and it’s time again for another Weekly Update Extravaganza!  While this has been a truly busy week for us with attending NRF’s BIG Show on Monday and Tuesday, and the much anticipated release of Version 2.0 of our mobile commerce platform and mShop self-checkout application, mobile news hasn’t stopped piling up!  Thanks largely to The BIG Show, everyone is talking about 2012′s biggest trends for the retail industry and how technology–most notably, mobile technology–will play a role.  If you weren’t able to attend the convention, or were there but unable to catch any of the talks, catch up on what you’ve missed with some of the session videos that are now online!

In other news, see some of the articles that caught our eye this week!  Anything you want to add?  Post it in the comments!

The National Retail Federation’s 101st Annual Convention and EXPO, held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City, wrapped up on Tuesday after two VERY busy days!  We are thrilled to share that the EXPO was a huge success!  Visitors stopped by booth #2937 from all over the country AND WORLD–we met with representatives from Spain, Brazil, Italy, Sweden, Japan, and Korea–just to name a few.

Whether those we met were fellow exhibitors, or attendees from the retail, technology, or consulting industries, everyone wanted to see how they might be able to incorporate mobile commerce in 2012. While some retailers already have their own mobile applications, many were eager to hear about how they could add features of AisleBuyer’s functionality–such as mobile self-checkout–into their exisiting apps by utilizing our newly released software development kit (SDK) for mShop.

It was awesome to be able to not only show live demonstrations of mShop, but to put actually put the technology in people’s hands!   In fact, we set up a game of “Shop ’til You Drop!” right at the booth, so visitors could test out the app themselves!  To compete, two people had to race against each other to scan 5 items from the shelves, pay, and checkout the fastest.  It was a fun game and highlighted the ease and benefit of mobile self-checkout!

With over 400 exhibitors at the show, the floor was buzzing with hundreds of new technologies and solutions for retailers. In fact, the NRF announced that this year’s show surpassed attendence expectations, with over 25,000 attendees!

This being the BIG Show and all, we went BIG with our booth in 2012! What started off looking like this…

Ended up looking like this!

All in all, we had a great time at the show. Were you there? Tell us the coolest things you saw at the show in the comments! And if you’re looking for some of the top line BIG Show trends, check out this video of the top Trends from the BIG Show ’12 EXPO floor, featuring AB’s own Andrew Paradise!

It has been a busy week for us here at AisleBuyer; we exhibited at the NRF BIG Show on Monday and Tuesday and, as you may have seen, we announced version 2 of our mobile commerce platform! This was a huge platform update for us, and contains some really exciting technology announcements, both on the consumer facing end and on the back end for retailers.

So without further ado, here are the key changes and additions we’ve made to our platform:

• A new software development kit (SDK) for the mShop application, which enables retailers and developers to build their own versions of mShop and to add specific features – such as mobile self-checkout or mobile wallet functionality – to existing applications.
• New Web APIs that make it easy to integrate merchandising data from other retail systems into the AisleBuyer platform, allowing retailers to offer  true multichannel commerce.
• A new Merchant Dashboard that allows brick and mortar retailers to enjoy the same level of analytics in-store that was previously reserved only for online retailers. The Dashboard provides a real-time view into all in-store activity, including individual shopper analysis.
• On the consumer side, we’ve redesigned the mShop interface based on extensive shopper feedback. Now, the application is sleeker and easier to use than ever!

The combinations of all these new offers and functions provide an even better shopping experience for consumers and new opportunities for retailers to utilize some of the best features of the AisleBuyer mobile commerce platform. But of course, that wasn’t the only exciting thing about this week! Check back here for tomorrow for a full rundown on the NRF BIG Show!