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"From\u00A0Google I/O to News Corp's plans, here's a look at the most important news in the media world this week.\r\nGoogle I/O from a media perspective\r\nGoogle I/O developers conference in San Francisco was definitely the biggest piece of tech news this week, and also delivered its fair share of media-related announcements. As we reported in our Day 1 roundup, the company officially introduced two new devices: the Nexus Q &amp;quot;social streaming media player&amp;quot;\u00A0and the Nexus 7 tablet.\r\n\r\nWhile it is priced at $199, it would be silly to think of the Nexus 7 as a cheaper iPad, our Apple editor Matthew Panzarino explains:\r\n&amp;quot;I\u2019ve had a bit to play with the Nexus 7 now and it\u2019s clear that, while it is good for an Android tablet as far as hardware, very little has been done to Jelly Bean to make it great for tablets. (...)\u00A0But (..) the Nexus 7 is about consuming content, not providing you with the best overall tablet experience. It is there to help you suddenly realize that you might enjoy purchasing things, like the newly announced movies, from Google Play.&amp;quot;\r\nAs a matter of fact,\u00A0movies, TV shows and magazines are now available to purchase on Google Play - and not only for rental. Film and TV partners include\u00A0Disney, Bravo, NBCUniversal and more. It's also worth noting that these titles can also be purchased on YouTube, as detailed on the video platform's official blog.\r\n\r\nGoogle released several other YouTube-related news announcements over the last few days, starting with the launch of a new YouTube app for Android. The fact that channels are a key part of its design is not an accident; as you may have noticed, YouTube has been focusing more heavily on curation over recently.\u00A0Our editor Drew Olanoff\u00A0talked to YouTube's Playlist team and reports:\r\n&amp;quot;Up until last year, everything that went into YouTube was all about the videos that are uploaded to the service. [YouTube's\u00A0senior product manager for YouTube\u00A0Dror Shimshowitz]\u00A0tells me that it\u2019s becoming more about the channels that people create to showcase and share those videos.&amp;quot;\r\nIn addition, you can now\u00A0tie your YouTube account with your Google+ profile if you are in the US - an option which will let you create playlists and share videos using your real name.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAs for Google TV, it is finally coming to the UK and Canada\u00A0thanks to Sony, which is about to launch two new devices, the\u00A0NSZ-GS7 Internet player and the NSZ-GP9 Blu-ray player. Both devices will be introduced in Canada, Australia, France, Germany and Netherlands, with the\u00A0NSZ-GS7 Internet player also becoming available in Brazil and Mexico during the second half of the year.\r\n\r\nDuring Google I/O, we have also learned that Google TV will now integrate a &amp;quot;full&amp;quot; Google Play experience. Combined to its international expansion, this may help the platform gain the traction it has been longing for.\r\nWhen old media meets new media: The New York Times lands on Flipboard\r\nEarlier this week, we reported that Flipboard had agreed a deal to carry the New York Times' content - including its pay-walled premium offering, which will only be accessible to subscribers.\r\n\r\nNon-subscribers will still be able to access \u2018top stories\u2019 from the newspaper, as they already can on the Web, as the\u00A0offical announcement\u00A0explains:\r\n&amp;quot;Times subscribers will have full access to all content including full articles, videos, photo slideshows and blogs. By tapping on The New York Times logo, readers will be able to browse stories from various New York Times sections, everything from Politics to Business to Style. As with other New York Times news applications, the Top News section of the app is free to all.&amp;quot;\r\nNews Corp to split - and what it means for its &amp;quot;newspaper problem&amp;quot;\r\nIt didn't take long for the information to be confirmed: only a few days after the\u00A0rumor first emerged, News Corp officially announced plans to split into two publicly-traded companies. If the project is approved, News Corp will give way to an entertainment company, with Rupert Murdoch as its CEO, and separate from the group's ailing publishing business.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAs The Atlantic pointed out, the move is hardly a surprise: &amp;quot;Some years ago, somebody called News Corp &amp;quot;a sports and entertainment company with a newspaper problem.&amp;quot; You can see why,&amp;quot; Derek Thompson wrote. &amp;quot;This sounds like fallout from the UK hacking scandal. Let me suggest that it's more about separating a high-flying entertainment business from a weaker publishing business that accounts for one-tenth of News Corp's profit and an even smaller share of its potential value,&amp;quot; he added.\r\n\r\nOne thing is for sure, the split will result in the creation of a profitable entertainment arm, which\u00A0Staci D. Kramer describes as &amp;quot;21st Century Fox.&amp;quot;\u00A0While this is good news for shareholders, Felix Salmon notes it may be less so for news. He detailed his view in a blog post titled 'News Corp loses its news':\r\n&amp;quot;Up until now, Murdoch has never really needed to worry very much about his newspapers\u2019 profitability, because the rest of his empire was throwing off such enormous profits. That\u2019s going to change. &amp;quot;\r\nVOD: Beyond the US\r\nDespite News Corp's recent difficulties, Netflix is still worried about Sky's position in the UK, which it describes as dominant. As PaidContent reports, the DVD rental and film streaming company is now giving itself one year\u00A0to outbid Sky Movies for first-run film rights.\r\n\r\nYet, Netflix has another threatening rival in the UK: Amazon's Lovefilm, which keeps on signing premium content deals - the latest in date is its film &amp;amp;amp; TV licensing agreement with Fox. In addition, Netflix also faces increased competition in Latin America; \u00A0as we reported, Walmart is currently expanding its VOD service Vudu, starting with Mexico.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAs for Hulu, it has signed a major content deal in Japan, which will bring HBO shows to its Japanese subscribers - but Japan is not the US, GigaOM warns:\r\n&amp;quot;U.S. users of Hulu shouldn\u2019t hold their breath for HBO content coming to the service any time soon. The shows added to the Japanese catalog are all part of the DVD window, and HBO has been successfully established its own online service HBO Go in the U.S. \u2013 and access to that offering is limited to cable TV subscribers who also pay for HBO access as part of their cable bill.&amp;quot;\r\nThe BBC gears up for the first digital Olympics\r\nAs the BBC keeps on adapting to the digital age, the corporation is now about to give its Red Button a refresh, by mixing it with BBC Online. As our Media co-editor\u00A0Paul Sawers reminded\u00A0us earlier this week, &amp;quot;the Red Button [was first introduced in 1999 as BBC Text\u00A0and] constitutes part of the BBC\u2019s digital TV offering, replacing its analogue Ceefax service. Today, the Red Button gets you alternative broadcasts, say, during sporting events, or text-based information on the day\u2019s biggest sports or news stories.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nFollowing the transition, the Red Button will get connected, BBC's\u00A0General Manager, Programmes &amp;amp;amp; On-Demand \u00A0Daniel Danker explained:\r\n&amp;quot;Imagine you\u2019re watching Eastenders and realise you missed the previous episode. Press Red and instantly bring up iPlayer to catch up on the episode you missed.\u00A0Or you\u2019re watching a cooking programme and you see a recipe you\u2019d like to try. Press Red, save it for later and access the recipe on your computer, tablet or mobile when you\u2019re ready to cook.&amp;quot;\r\nAs for sports, the institution is getting ready for its\u00A0first digital Olympics\u00A0- and we now know that its plans include Facebook. As we reported, BBC Sports introduced a new Facebook livestream app on time for Wimbledon, which it will further improve before the Olympics.\r\nContent co-creation: where is the limit?\r\nThe iPhone has just turned 5 years old, and there is no denying it: this small device has changed news forever, Mathew Ingram insists. This is true for both news consumption and news creation.\r\n\r\nOn one hand,\u00A055% of US adults browse the Internet on their phone, according to a\u00A0new study\u00A0released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.\u00A0On the other hand, many of us have become citizen reporters, a trend in which mainstream media is increasingly interested. As we reported a few days ago, the Huffington Post\u00A0has closed a partnership with Ustream, which will let it include videos filmed by Ustream's community to its breaking news reports.\r\n\r\nOn a related note, Farhad Manjoo decided to take a closer look at the sources behind Buzzfeed's viral stories, and found out that the website often relies on the work of amateurs and on their online collaboration on platforms such as Reddit. While his reverse-engineering effort doesn't openly accuse Buzzfeed of any malpractice such as plagiarism, it certainly breaks part of the myth behind the site's virality:\r\n&amp;quot;The secret to its viral success is to find stuff that\u2019s already a minor viral success and make it better. Repeat the process enough, and you\u2019re bound to get a few mega-hits. That\u2019s not genius. It\u2019s a machine,&amp;quot; Manjoo writes.\r\nDo you agree with Manjoo's take on Buzzfeed? Let us know in the comments!"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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