Yahoo has acquired Maven Networks for US$160 million in a deal that will help the search provider boost its video advertising capabilities.

Media companies including Fox News, CBS Sports, Sony BMG use Maven's platform to manage, distribute and earn advertising revenue from their online video content. The platform includes an advertising insertion engine as well as inventory management and reporting tools. Companies use it to post videos on their sites and insert interactive ads into the videos.

Yahoo Tuesday said it plans to contribute its display advertising sales force and technologies to Maven's platform to help publishers display more targeted ads in videos. The deal means that advertisers can buy video, search and display ads through Yahoo, which believes that video is a fast growing segment of the online ad market.

Maven has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yahoo, which has established a Cambridge, Massachusetts, office with the acquisition.

Yahoo makes the acquisition in the midst of an increasingly hostile attempt by Microsoft to buy the search company. In response to Yahoo's rebuttal of its buyout offer, Microsoft on Monday said that it thinks its offer was fair and that it might take the offer directly to Yahoo shareholders.