American Express is trying something innovative with their mobile efforts.

On Tuesday, the company launched what’s being hailed as an “industry first mobile offer engine.”

The program, says American Express, recommends and ranks relevant merchant offers in real time for US Cardmembers based on their spending history and location. All of this information is combined and presented in a so-called Cardmember’s “spend graph.”

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On Friday, American Express and Isis, the mobile commerce joint venture that brings together such otherwise diverse and incompatible characters as AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless, announced another new addition to the “family.”

Isis will make American Express’ U.S. Consumer, OPEN Small Business and Serve Cards available in the Isis Mobile Wallet.

For the time being, however, this roll-out will take place in only select markets.

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Groupon continues its evolution in the daily deal space, this week with the formal launch of Groupon Rewards nationwide.

Billed as a user friendly loyalty program for merchants, Groupon Rewards offers customers special “rewards” in return for their shopping loyalty.

After a successful pilot program in Philadelphia, Groupon Rewards is now open to U.S. merchants, regardless of whether or not the business has previously run a Groupon deal.

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On Tuesday, venerable consumer credit giant MasterCard raised the curtain on PayPass Wallet Services.

Billed as a new global offering for banks, merchants and other partners, the service is said to make it faster and easier for customers to make purchases in stores or online.

In short, the platform allows users to securely pay with a simple click of the mouse, touch of the tablet screen or tap of the smartphone.

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On Monday, another major acquisition was confirmed in the mCommerce space.

Today, precision consumer marketing firm Catalina Marketing Corporation announced its acquisition of mCommerce outfit Modiv Media.

According to details provided in a joint statement, the integration of Modiv into Catalina provides brands and retailers the ability to engage shoppers, influence their behavior, and boost loyalty with a “unique mobile experience” that saves shoppers time and money.

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On Friday, the internet and mobile security experts at AVG Technologies released its Q1 2012 Community Powered Threat Report.

The report raises awareness about the use of mobile devices in connecting with social networks and how this is fast becoming a preferred method for cyber criminals to spread malware – primarily to Android-powered devices.

“We detected a big increase in the use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to target Android users. Cyber criminals are finding it very convenient to distribute their malware straight to a mobile device via these networks,” says Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Chief Technology Officer at AVG. “The growth of the Android platform has been phenomenal, which has not gone unnoticed with cyber criminals who have discovered it to be a lucrative target for their malware. In 2011, Google had to remove over 100 malicious apps from the official Android market, Google Play.”

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This week, a new infographic sponsored by Mobile+Positive and Luth Research was published to great interest across the blogosphere.

The infographic and its underlying report provide a fascinating look at how well Walmart, Target, Sears and Kohls have performed in Apple’s App Store.

The data is based on the Luth Traffic Index, which is an estimate of the total downloads an app has received over its entire lifespan. It is based on statistical analysis of comments, ratings, price, category and date of last release of each app in the iTunes and Android Marketplace.

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