Yahoo has announced new video ad formats, following the growing number of eyeballs watching video online.
They include clickable ads, which allow viewers to click on them to see a semi-transparent message over the video. Viewers can click on the message to go to the advertiser's site.
Another ad type that is interactive displays a three-second "bumper" that turns into a banner ad above the video window. When the ad is clicked, the video is paused to display the interactive ad.
Yahoo also has integrated overlay ad formats from its Maven Networks purchase into its video products. The Maven ads are "splash" screens or bumpers, or inserted in the middle of the video, or fed live. They display a rich media or Flash message that viewers can interact with.
Yahoo announced Tuesday that it has snapped up online video platform provider Maven Networks, in a $160 million deal.
What makes the transaction particularly interesting is that it comes as Yahoo is butting heads with Microsoft, which not so very long ago launched a $44.6 billion unsolicited bid for Yahoo. As the companies fight over Yahoo's proper valuation, add to the mix the Maven acquisition.
Yahoo and Maven were apparently in merger talks before the Microsoft bid surfaced, with the deal reportedly on the verge of getting inked on Jan. 31 or Feb. 1, according to reports. Microsoft went public with its multibillion-dollar buyout offer on Feb. 1, a fact that no doubt proved something of a distraction to the Yahoo-Maven deal.
Nonetheless, the Maven deal moved forward and here's what Yahoo hopes to get out of it:
Yahoo is aiming to bolster its video content syndication and video advertising capabilities to publishers and advertisers. Maven develops video publishing platforms designed to allow publishers to dish up videos to consumers through a range of media players, along with media management and workflow technologies.
From that you would likely see Yahoo trying to meld its library of licensed video content, as well as its relationships with advertisers and Web publishers, with Maven's technology to manage and distribute online video to such media company titans as Fox News, Sony BMG, and Gannett.
Maven will retain its operations in Cambridge, Mass., and operate as a wholly owned Yahoo subsidiary. Or perhaps one day, a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary.
Yahoo will announce that it has acquired Maven Networks, a video-hosting startup, according to a report in the blog TechCrunch.
Citing three unnamed sources, TechCrunch reported that Yahoo has paid about $150 million for the start-up and will announce the deal Thursday or Friday.
Cambridge, Mass.-based Maven Neworks helps media companies present video content on their Web sites. Among the company's customers are Fox News, CBS Sports and CNET Networks, parent company of News.com.
A Yahoo spokesperson declined to comment on "rumor and speculation." Representatives from Maven could not be reached for comment.
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