It’s just five days until the start of Danny Sullivan’s first solo search marketing conference. SMX Advanced kicks-off in Seattle with a cocktail reception Sunday night, then two days of action packed sessions.

I’ll be there with video camera in hand. I want to interview as many people as possible, so if you see me, please stop me and I’ll put you on camera for at least 20 seconds!

Leave a comment if you’re going or if you have anyone you’d like me to track down and put on camera.

Speaking at the Seoul Digital Forum today, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told reporters that he fully expects the DoubleClick deal to pass the scrutiny of an FTC investigation.

“We are quite convinced that the proposed merger meets all appropriate U.S. laws,” he said.

(Side note – notice the use of “merger” and not “acquisition”. Maybe that is less threatening language for the benefit of the FTC)

Schmidt also confirmed that Google would continue looking for acquisition targets, but would likely stay away from any media content creators.

“We’re open to other (acquisitions) but there are no specific ones to announce…We made a decision to focus on what we’re good at,” he said, referring to the company’s powerful search functions and other technology tools.

By Brittany Thompson

Modern technology appears to be taking the world’s leading search engine in a new direction that might allow Google to recognize facial features in images. Google Blogoscoped reported Monday that Google Images has added a few new features, which are only available by appending URL variables of current image searches. Such variables allow searchers to narrow searches to images of faces (people) or news-related images.