Here they come: 2013 predictions. One of the dozen that Optify lays out provides an interesting option for brands. Will Google start charging for its data? Google made huge investments in its analytics technology this year, as well as stronger enforcement of its API terms. The post points out that combined with increasing blocked referring data, more than 40% of organic searches are blocked, and Google could make a move toward charging for the data it collects and stores.

What does a marketer's email campaign convey about a company? About the same as what an email address says about the person using it. Jennifer Wong serves up advice on putting together a well-designed email campaign. The post -- although a bit biased toward Optify's email manager -- provides tips on using templates, aligning colors and fonts with the topic, and creating HTML and plain text versions.

Google has released the top trending searches for 2012, which shows what type of information people looked for online. Whitney Houston, who passed away in February, drew a greater number of searches this year than any other topic, according to the company's report. The list, which complies the most-searched on topics, shows that people wanted to better understand news stories. Hurricane Sandy and Election 2012 ranked second and third, respectively, on the trending searches list.

Russian-based Yandex announced Wednesday that the search engine now personalizes queries and makes suggestions based on the individual interests and preferences of each user. By default, the new search platform, Kaliningrad, analyzes behavior based on search history, clicks on search results, and language preferences. Both Google and Bing offer a similar search feature.

Apple and Google have partnered in a $500 million deal to purchase Eastman Kodak's patents, Bloomberg News reports. The 1,1000 imaging patents went up on the auction block after the 100-year-old company filed for bankruptcy. The two had previously been on separate teams bidding for the intellectual property. The Apple-led group had Microsoft in its corner. Neither company confirmed the partnership, according to Bloomberg.

U.S. consumers have spent $26.6 billion online, up 13%, during the first 37 days of the holiday shopping season. The most recent week saw three separate days surpass $1 billion in spending: Monday, Dec. 3 at $1.117 billion, Tuesday, Dec. 4 at $1.362 billion, and Wednesday, Dec. 5  at $1.051 billion. Lots of money is being spent, but how much of that begins with a search on an engine rather than a Web site? 

Sean Quadlin tells us about 10 reports that made him "fall in love with pivot tables." For those still using Excel, it provides a straightforward tool that allows marketers to transform tons of data into something usable. Marketers can have all the data in the world, but if they can't understand it the data become worthless. Quadlin takes us through quality scores, best average position, variants, ad reviews, landing pages and more.

The engineers of Microsoft's Bing have been working on more than building a better search engine. Mary Jo Foley reports that an augmented reality (AR) team inside Bing is building both an AR framework and AR applications that will ship on Windows 8 tablets and other devices. The team is working on apps like camera tracking, visual and audio recognition, and optical character recognition and translation. Perhaps they will share the technology with the Xbox 360 team.

Bing is rolling out two new categories in Snapshot, which the engine launched earlier this year. Celebrities and landmarks will enable users to search for a famous person like Pablo Picasso or a landmark like Seattle's Space Needle, and see all the relevant facts, specific information, reviews, photos, and links to social content on the main results page. The feature allows users to watch movie trailers, listen to and purchase music, with just one click.

Search engine optimization and paid-search tool provider Raven will discontinue its rank checker tool after the company failed Google's annual audit. After determining that the money it would take wasn't worth the effort or the data, Raven CEO Patrick Keeble decided it wasn't worth the effort or rate of return. He said others also lost access to the AdWords API, but didn't name names.