Yahoo Consumes Maven Networks

A little less than two weeks ago, we ran a pretty inexact headline: "Yahoo Eyes Maven Networks For $160 (Or So) Million."  But today, an official press release came out, and in our eyes, validated everything by stating, "Yahoo! acquired Maven Networks for approximately $160 million."

Maven Networks is an online video platform provider, and its customers include entities like CBS Sports, Gannett, The Financial Times, Fox News, Hearst, Ogilvy, Sony BMG, and Sony Pictures Television.  By joining Yahoo, Maven will hardly upend any pending deal with Microsoft, but it may add a little value to the equation.

Advertising is, after all, one of the most-mentioned aspects of the potential Yahoo-Microsoft arrangement, and video advertising is more or less the leading (profitable) edge in this field.  Mobile advertising is newer, but, well, it stinks.

On the Yodel Anecdotal blog, Hilary Schneider drives the point home by writing, "Forrester estimates that online video advertising will grow to more than $4 billion in 2011."

So we’ll see where the acquisition of Maven takes Yahoo.  And just in case you were wondering, neither Yahoo’s blog post nor its press release makes any mention of Microsoft.