Since the deal for YouTube, the social networking video file sharing has struck major agreements with content producers (disclosure: WatchMojo.com’s web video unit being of them) meaning that even if produces none of it, it is in the content business.

By buying Feedburner, it bought the feeds that connect users with publishers… so again, it went around ownership of the underlying content but it got rights to monetize and manage it.

This week it announced a deal whereby it would - instead of simply linking out to news organizations’ websites - host content from a handful of news providers. Make no mistake about it, this is simply one more brilliant way for Google to transform itself from a technology company to a media one, after all, online, the money is in advertising, and as Jeff Jarvis suggests, this is one yet more move for Google to fully control advertising online.

Google the search company is dead, Google the portal is alive and well… but instead of bundling everything onto one page, it is slowly but surely weaving the various content/application assets it owns / owns right to and creating exactly what a new media company looks like.