Facebook Takes the Microsoft Money And Runs.

Now that Google has formally lost Facebook, will it play catch up and build up its own social network? Or stick to its core business of search?

 

 

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Facebook Takes the Microsoft Money And Runs.

via TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld on 10/24/07

While the storyline would have been more dramatic if Facebook had spurned its current ad-serving partner Microsoft for Google, it is confirmed that Microsoft has won the deal to invest up to $250 million in Facebook and expand its existing relationship to international markets, according to the WSJ.

While Google would have been a closer fit in terms of it overall philosophy (more open than not), it may have just been too expensive to buy out Microsoft from its current deal to supply ads for Facebook in the U.S. Given its deep ties with Microsoft, sticking with them was always the path of least resistance. And one could argue that Google has never felt comfortable targeting ads based on private user profile data, which seems to be the great promise of Facebook, ad-wise. Microsoft doesn't share those qualms.

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