Welcome to the kickoff post of Friday Fuel! Each week we're going to highlight news, trends, and stories from the internet marketing industry. It's going to be kind of like Tosh.0 except with marketing news and without a host that's pretending to be funny (nor do I make claim of a good sense of humor).

Onwards and upwards...

General Marketing

Customer Intelligence, Privacy, and the "Creepy Factor" - Harvard Business Review

Privacy is something that you hear about a lot and the creepy factor is something that we discuss with our clients a lot. How much is too much? At what point does advertising become creepy? Author Larry Downes, basically says "people are just freaking out, they'll get over it". Advertisers really aren't "seeing" your personal data, they lump you into a category with similar customers and you're soon "lost in the crowd".

Google buys Frommers, destination content in search just got a little bit more interesting - Tnooz

As a person that works with a lot of companies in the travel industry, all I have to say is: Yay! Zagat scores for hotels just don't cut it.

Social

Google+ Begins Vanity URL Roll-Out - Marketing Pilgrim

Google's begun offering vanity URLs to select companies. Us proletarians will need to wait until the general roll out, however. Start making plans now to make sure you get http://plus.google.com/+lookatthisweirdcharacterintheurl.

Facebook Tries Letting Pages Show News Feed Ads To Non-Fans - TechCrunch

Oh Facebook. A few months ago you could do no wrong. Then you went public. Firs of all, I have to say TechCrunch's title is awesomely condescending. Facebook "tried" to let pages do this. I have to agree with them, though. At this point Facebook seems a bit desperate.

New Facebook Metric For Sponsored Stories: Average News Feed Position - AllFacebook

Facebook released a new metric for Sponsored Stories. A welcome addition I think.

Paid Search

AdWords Hangouts on Air - Google

While I think Google+ hasn't realized it's potential, I really like where some companies are going with Hangouts. Google announced an AdWords expert hangout every other Thursday.

How To Set-Up Analytics Funnels & Use Them For Conversion Rate Optimization - PPC Hero

PPC Hero has really starting putting out some quality posts over the past year. This one is no different. By no means is it a comprehensive guide to cart optimization, it is a good jumping off point for those who have never done it before.

SEO

Google Testing Lead Generation System for New Car Sales - Blumenthals

A great concept from Google. Personally, I hate buying cars. The idea of being able to get dealer quotes anonymously sounds amazing. Now if only Google would go to the dealership and deal with the salesman for me...

What If Every Industry Recruited Like Online Marketing? - Stoked SEO

Very funny post uncovering the reality behind most internet marketing job posts. Does this make me want to change my official title to "Fancy, Prancy Magic Man", no, not at all. It does, however, make me feel validated as a person that there are other people out there who facepalm at the utterance of the title "rock star" or "ninja" or any other pretentious made up crap. Here are a couple other good posts related to the same topic:

• http://davidmcohen.com/why-marketers-should-be-seo-ppc-coding-and-copywriting-guru-ninjas/
• http://www.koozai.com/blog/search-marketing/calling-all-wannabe-seo-rockstars-leave-it-to-the-pros/

Yes, Bing Has Human Search Quality Raters & Here’s How They Judge Web Pages - Search Engine Land

Very cool look into some of the guidelines for Bing's quality raters. The main topics here are search intent and freshness.

Website Redesign Considerations for SEO and PPC - Coconut Headphones

Lol...Coconut Headphones...Humorous name aside, this is a pretty good checklist for those looking to revamp their site.

Email Marketing

Charity Water ~ Big ideas and life-changing email communication. - Email On Acid

Full disclosure, my family started supporting Charity Water this year. It's a great organization that raises money to provide water in developing countries. I encourage you to check them out. It was cool to see them mentioned by an email company and  to see what one of their full email campaigns looked like. Charity Water's emails are a good example of how to keep subscribers engaged without overwhelming them.

Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes - Microsoft

Move over Hotmail. Look out Gmail. And Yahoo...nevermind. Microsoft revamped their webmail offering, moving away from Hotmail to Outlook.com. It's a great design, has some good functionality, and has already hit 10 million users. Email on Acid has a good write up about what it means for email marketers.

Does the Fold Matter in Email Marketing? - Campaign Monitor

Why is it called the fold? Nothing really folds, it's more like the screen bottom. Can we change it to "above the bottom"? Anyway, this post highlights the for and against arguments of the fold in email design.

There you have it. The very first of Friday Fuel. Hopefully your tank is full and you're...not really sure where I'm trying to go with that metaphor. It is Friday after all.