Since I am seeing a number of 2012 prediction threads for my industry, let me throw a couple out of my own:

1) Hundreds of people will claim that analytics/targeting/testing/modeling/etc has allowed them to achieve amazing new success (and will publish or speak about it) – that success will be by doing what they were already doing and will be almost 100% pure BS. It amazed me that people think that they will actually get value from new tools if they use them to do the same old things that were failing before this one tool. Tool sales and agencies will continue to push this promise, now more about solutions then features, but will continue to push people down roads that lead to the same disaster they were trying to avoid by buying the tool.

You have to think differently and challenge the status quo to get any meaningful result.

2) Old will be new again – “personalization”, “dynamic pages”, “modular design”, and many others will make a come back, only to be replaced by the end of the year with updated terms for old concepts (see Blink, mobile, social, email, flash as older examples of things to come back). – This will once again be because new “leaders” will be brought in to replace the old ones who failed, promising to do the next big thing, but really just replacing the old with older as they do only what they are comfortable with.

In the end, if you want a “new” new year, you have to change you and challenge yourself, otherwise you will get the same results you always get.