Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave what he just had to know would be a much quoted comment to the Nikkei today, explicitly saying that the company had “begun seriously looking into acquisitions again.”

Music to the beleaguered mergers and acquisitions market, to be sure, especially after a recent uptick from other big companies pulling out their wallets again as the impact of the econalypse subsides.

According to sources, Google is working on at least a half-dozen acquisition deals, most of which are small start-ups in the online advertising and cloud-computing arenas.

That would be welcome news for many.

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Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle is indeed all she is cracked up to be.

But her virality on the Internet is not, even though she has–in fact–become an Internet sensation.

Though the performance of the unemployed 47-year-old woman–dressed in a dowdy frock, wowing the judges on the television show, “Britain’s Got Talent” with an astonishing rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from the musical “Les Miserables”–has been viewed many millions of times now and growing, it’s not easy to move it around on the Web.

It should be.

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Despite the little-movie-that-could, “Slumdog Millionaire,” sweeping the Oscars on Sunday night, it was well-nigh impossible to find a really good online video of the amazing Bollywood-style dance routine done during the closing credits to the also award-winning song, “Jai Ho!”

Unfortunately, the A.R. Rahman tune (two well-deserved Oscars for him!) in the catchy song-and-dance number seemed to be subject to takedowns all over the Web just when it probably was a good time to put it out and generate even more box office buzz for “Slumdog.”

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Recently, while I was at a conference in Los Angeles, I caught up with Veoh Founder Dmitry Shapiro.

BoomTown will be focusing a lot on online video this year and Veoh is one of the several online video sharing sites–a group of smaller players that includes sites like Joost, Hulu, Dailymotion, Vimeo and others that I like to call not-YouTube.

Still, it is making progress.

Today, the Los Angeles-based Veoh announced that the ABC television network would put full episodes of its hot primetime shows–such as “Ugly Betty” (love it) and “Desperate Housewives” (not so much)–up on the site.

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For your Thanksgiving entertainment, don’t be so American! Go abroad! See the world! BoomTown did!
Here are links to the posts I have done from BoomTown’s trip to Europe–with glamorous stops in England, France and Monaco (and all the videos are below too!)–in chronological order going backward:

Kara Visits the Royal Society in London

Kara Visits Cambridge University
Kara [...]

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After my visit to Netvibes, I also went over to another cool Web company here that I have been following for a while: Dailymotion.
Based in Paris and funded with $32 million from Atlas Venture and Partech International, the video-sharing site positions itself these days as kind of an anti-YouTube–better at programming, easier to use with [...]

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I have arrived in Dublin and am so tired, I am still trying to figure out the time difference and money–yes, I am a completely ignorant American!
Nonetheless, we press on and serve up some interesting items from around the Web–this time with a Euro-focus.
First observation: If you want to make a friend abroad, carry an [...]

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