In July 2012, app stores — first popularized by Apple — will be four years old. There is still a lot of room to improve the discoverability and sharing of apps. For example, locally relevant content and monetization options are often missing. Adding social discovery, personalization, and recommendation features are key to improving the user experience.

However, app stores have already had a dramatic impact on the distribution of games and are starting to offer new forms of engagement between brands and consumers. Consumer usage of the most popular mobile apps has exploded in the past two years. A third of European online consumers ages 18+ who own a smartphone are using apps daily or more frequently. Seventeen percent are using apps several times a day. Stickiness and frequency of usage vary tremendously from one app category to the other. Among European online consumers ages 18+ with installed apps on their smartphones, 57% use social networking and 48% use news apps at least daily, while 69% use finance and banking apps at least weekly.

First-generation apps — aside from gaming apps — rarely made the most of the unique attributes of the mobile platform and were rarely integrated with back-end systems. We believe the market is poised for a second wave of consumer apps that are more personalized and contextual. Here’s what to expect:

■          “Big data” will enable more contextual experiences on mobile apps.

■          We'll see smarter, connected apps.

■          There will be a shift from native to hybrid and web apps.

■          Multiplatform apps will reign supreme.

China has become the leading emerging market for many Western brands and retailers. For many businesses, the growing spending power of high-income consumers and the middle class in China has become a compelling growth engine. For luxury brands, China is already a huge growth market, and many Western companies have had a brand presence in China for many years, albeit often with counterfeit products and even whole counterfeit stores. But as the economy grows in China and consumer thirst for foreign brands increases, companies will be compelled to consider an online direct-to-consumer presence due in-part to the following factors:

• The scope of the Chinese market is immense. Not only is China one of the largest in the world by area, it already had more than 171 cities with more than 1 million inhabitants as of the country’s last census, which has likely increased markedly in the last 10 years. While launching physical stores in core markets such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen may be feasible, reaching even just the top-tier cities is extremely challenging operationally, particularly for a Western brand or retailer. eCommerce presents an important way to reach consumers across the entire country while complementing any decision to invest in core physical retail operations.

I have a tailor named James.

Well, I say I have a tailor, but in truth I’ve only commissioned one item – a jacket – and it’s not done yet. I had an initial fitting about 10 days ago, and I’ll collect the finished article next week.

I decided to find a tailor because I was tired of off-the-rack suits that never fit quite right. So James took more than a dozen measurements. We talked in detail about sleeve lengths, and lapel widths, and how I liked my jackets cut. And once he’d made a sample, I tried it on so James could get the details just right. I expect it’ll be a perfect fit.

When you look at your company’s marketing efforts from one country to another, how well would you say those programs fit? In the past year I’ve worked with a bank, a consumer goods manufacturer, and a pharmaceutical company that are all struggling with how to globalize their interactive marketing programs. And while most of them had a couple different issues holding them back, there was one common theme: The global programs rarely fit the local markets.

Local interactive marketing managers tell us they’re also tired of shopping off-the-rack — in their case, being handed one-size-fits-all sites and strategies that aren’t tailored to their markets — and that they usually don’t have enough resources to make the proper alterations. The result is a choice between using ill-fitting global programs that don’t meet local needs or creating cheap one-off local efforts that don’t meet global guidelines or standards.

Adobe recently announced its partnership with hybris. This deal has been a poorly kept secret as Adobe waited to make public announcements at its customer summit even after it has been out selling the joint solution and working with partners. Adobe is integrating the hybris commerce platform with  Adobe's Web Experience Management (WEM) solutions, an artist formerly known as Day CQ5. This is intended to add commerce capabilities to the CMS/CXM solution represented by WEM. Companies should consider a number of things when evaluating this product relationship between hybris and Adobe, including: