According to Forrester‘s report, which was published in February, mobile is driving a second Internet revolution with its more than 1 billion smartphones in use, that’s even more profound than the first one.

Mobile creates new value for consumers and businesses, alters cost structures, and disrupts ecosystems. That’s why marketers must move away from tactical mobile efforts to more transformative mobile marketing strategies in 2013.

The fourth annual mobile trends report revisits the trends identified in 2012 and elaborates on how they will continue to evolve in 2013, highlighting new mobile trends that are expected to develop this year.

This year’s report also includes a new list of over-hyped topics that, according to Forrester, will fail to provide real business value in the short term.

Here‘s a summary of the findings for your convenience.

Changes in behavior and ubiquity drive a mobile mind shift in 2013

Mobile devices and their connectivity fundamentally shift how people behave and how businesses engage with them. These shifts are happening even faster outside North America and Europe, in countries like China, Brazil, and India.

Marketers who were affected early on by this shift in mobile mindset understand that 1) immediacy and convenience combine to alter people’s behavior. Consumers are changing their normal routines due to the multiple mobile options at their fingertips. And 2) Ubiquity profoundly disrupts business models.

Mobile will recast your go-to-market propositions, revenue streams, cost structures, partner ecosystems, and success metrics. Mobile phones have replaced cameras, maps, cash registers, TV remotes, and portable gaming devices. Now they are supplanting ATMs for check deposits and printouts for boarding passes, tickets, and coupons. Price checks at the store shelf are forcing retailers to rethink pricing policies and signage options. Apps from Uber Technologies and myTaxi disintermediate the need for central dispatch for taxi drivers. Firms must run their businesses in real time to respond to customers, partners, and employees.

2013 expected developments include:

• Businesses will continue to put organizations, staffing, and governance in place to manage the growth in the use of mobile.
• Staffing combined with outsourcing decisions will become strategic.
• Most marketers will struggle to migrate their tablet experience beyond one that offers consistent experiences across screens.
• A handful of marketers with more resources will create a differentiated strategy for tablets to leverage their effectiveness as a media device, their position as a PC substitute, and the ability of consumers to create — not just consume.
• The quality and design of user experiences is a key element of a consumer’s assessment of the relative convenience of any product or service including mobile.
• Expect to see marketers move from “We have mobile” to “Mobile helps us differentiate ourselves from our competition.”
• A range of stakeholders (e.g., banks, operators, retailers, and third parties) will launch mobile digital wallets by adding receipts, vouchers, and loyalty services to payments to stake their claim.
• Expect a lot of innovation, trials, acquisitions, and strategic alliances in the space. Few offerings will be convenient, limiting usage uptake in 2013.
• Android will remain the indisputable smartphone OS leader, with Apple a distant (but premium) second. Competition for the third ecosystem will take place between Windows Phone 8, BlackBerry 10, and, to a lesser extent, new open ecosystems (e.g., Firefox OS, Tizen, Ubuntu). None of them will gain any meaningful traction among marketers and developers — challenging their longer-term viability.
• The role of social media and the need for more personalized retailing in app discovery and distribution will grow in importance. Both Amazon and Facebook have broader opportunities to establish themselves as key players in the space.
• Expectations of receiving more relevant content and services on mobile devices will move beyond mobile-savvy users.
• Consumers are increasingly task-oriented in their use of mobile devices. As a result, they expect simplicity.
• Concerns about privacy, identity, and security issues in the mobile context will continue to grow significantly.
• Developing trust and reassurance will start becoming a differentiator, especially for brands crafting an approach around the Internet of Things.
• HTML5 will continue to see a lot of traction in 2013; it is a viable technology for creating good web-based experiences across devices in situations where budget is an issue or the primary objective is the consistency of experiences across devices.
• Savvy marketers will begin to differentiate their mobile service offerings on applications and browsers.
• Personal cloud services (e.g., Evernote, iCloud, Spotify) will be increasingly critical in the delivery of cross-device experiences.
• While hopefully transparent for consumers, cloud-based technologies will mature and support marketers’ need for more seamless experiences.
• NFC handset shipments will continue to grow significantly and will pass the 250 million mark in 2013. Despite numerous commercial launches, usage of mobile contactless payments will not take off significantly. Other contactless services will get more traction. NFC will remain a field for experimentation for the vast majority of marketers.

Trends center on multiyear plans and growing investments

Beware of what will disappoint or not scale

It’s hard to ignore press hype or vendor marketing about magical solutions that will grow revenue, cut costs, and offer amazing insights about your customers, dream on.

Here’s a list of the hot mobile topics that you shouldn’t count on in 2013:

• “Game-changing” mobile technologies like NFC and indoor positioning will make significant progress — but there will be no major breakthroughs.
• Solid returns on investment (ROI) or cross-channel attribution.
• Automated mobile marketing and targeting solutions.
• Great user experiences - there will only be a few.
• Responsive design.
• Context gleaned from mobile devices. We expect firms to focus their attention on contextual marketing and services, but the learning curve on this extends well beyond 2013.
• The love of your business technology group. In 2013, you will need to convince internet IT / business technology departments to move mobile requirements higher on the list of design parameters — or you’ll find yourself even further behind in 2014. (Source: Forrester Research, Inc.)

By Anjum Siddiqi