Yahoo's drubbing in the market and the media continues, but the portal is finally throwing some deft counterpunches. Yesterday Yahoo announced two savvy maneuvers involving ad technology. One was the buyout of AdInterax. In the second deal, Yahoo led a $45 million round of investment in Right Media, a New York-based ad-network .

Both deals are intriguing. AdInterax, says ClickZ "is a hosted technology provider that enables non-technical users to create rich media ads through a drag-and-drop interface." Apparently the idea is to create a self-service tool that would allow Yahoo advertisers to create rich media ads - much as they currently do for text ads. Sounds promising.

Meanwhile, The Browser has been following the story of Right Media for some time. Founded by Michael Walrath, a former DoubleClick exec, the company has built an open network for ad trading. Think NASDAQ for ads. Instead of both advertisers having to interact with Google - and to play by Google's rules - a true open market lets participants contract directly with each other. AdAge notes the Right Media's network is now trading two billion ad impressions each day, and that Walrath and his crew believe they can one day trade offline ads too - like TV or radio. (For background, look here.)

Word has it that the $45 million invested by Yahoo and Red Point gave them a 20% share -pegging Right Media's valuation at $225 million.