Digital retail giant Amazon has quietly indicated that it will end its PayPhrase program.

If you’re unfamiliar with PayPhrase, Amazon had previously launched the program as a means for further simplifying the online shopping experience.

Not yet three years old, PayPhrase allowed shoppers to check out by simply using a personal phrase followed by a four-digit pin.

Amazon says on its website that the time has come to move on from PayPhrase.

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On Monday, the team at Digby – the leaders in multi-channel mobile engagement and commerce – heralded the launch of Digby Localpoint, a new mobile platform that enables location-based marketing, analytics and commerce for top brands.

Judging from the lofty language used by the company to announce the arrival of its new solution, it’s apparent that Digby really digs the platform.

Through powerful web-style analytics into shopping activities at a brand’s physical locations and effective, targeted location-aware mobile messaging tools, Digby Localpoint enables brands to attract, influence, understand and own the relationship with their loyal customers across all channels.

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With mobile commerce taking off to an unprecedented degree at the onset of 2012, leading retailers and other top ecommerce platforms are going out of their way to make sure their loyalists have the best shopping experience possible.

According to the latest insight provided by research firm ForeSee, Apple’s mobile shopping satisfaction score puts the Cupertino, California-based tech giant on the top tier of players in mCommerce.

An impressive 85% of 3,000 consumers surveyed rank Apple at the top of their favorite companies to shop from online. Incredibly, Apple’s mobile shopping score was even higher than consumers’ overall satisfaction with Apple’s web store, which has an 83% approval rating.

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Wal-Mart is gearing up for a major mobile commerce push in 2012. That much is evident Thursday as news comes of the latest acquisition by the juggernaut name in bricks-and-mortar and online retail.

WalmartLabs, the upstart social and mobile product incubator at Wal-Mart, has acquired a company called Small Society.

A mobile-centric firm, Small Society is responsible for numerous highly iPhone applications for leading brands like Starbucks, Zipcar and Whole Foods.

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PayPal is stepping up to the plate in a bold effort to challenge Groupon and LivingSocial in the daily deals realm. According to published reports Monday, current plans call for the eBay-owned payment platform and provider to join the fray in the first quarter of 2012.

For its initial roll out, PayPal will partner with some of the top 200 U.S.-based merchants.

PayPal is admittedly seeking its share of a daily coupon market that is on pace to double to $4.17 billion by 2015, BIA/Kelsey forecasts.

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According to the latest data made available by Nielsen, Facebook and apps from Google like Gmail and the Android Market are the most popular smartphone apps among Android owners 18 years and older in the U.S.

To rank mobile apps by active reach, that is, by the percentage of Android owners who used the app within the past 30 days, Nielsen analyzed usage data from its proprietary device meters on the smartphones of the thousands of consumer panelists who agreed to be part of Nielsen’s ongoing Smartphone Analytics research.

Nielsen found that Facebook’s popular app is the most active among Android owners in the age range of 18-24 and 25-34, “who both hover at around an 80 percent active reach.”

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Mobile shopping is poised to reach the zenith of its popularity and usage so far this holiday shopping season.

A new study from Wakefield Research (which was commissioned by Motricity) shows that 70% of device-shoppers made more purchases in 2011 than they did in 2010 from their smartphone or tablet.

The study confirms that this holiday season may be the biggest year for online holiday shopping yet.

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