Microsoft Buys 1.6% of Facebook... for $240 Million

The Seattle Times reported that Microsoft just made a deal with Facebook to become the exclusive, global provider of banner advertising sales until 2011. Microsoft purchased a 1.6% share of the company for $240 million, which makes Facebook worth $15 billion. Seattle Times also notes that even though it's a $15 billion dollar dot-com, it has yet to turn a profit. The deal appears to be another step in Microsoft's recent takeover of online advertising, which includes their recent acquisition of AQuantive (Ave.A-Razorfish). Well, let the games begin cause who did Microsoft beat out for the share? Good ol' Google.

I guess since Google got beat, they'll probably just make their own networking site that will rule them all! Since MySpace is held by Murdoch, and now Facebook is teaming up with Microsoft, the only place Google can really go is on their own. I know there are a lot of other social-networking sites, but they suck, which is why I can't name any of them here. But, I think this might work to Google's advantage, cause MySpace is on it's way out, so Facebook will be top-dog, but it's already getting crowded over there, so... Google can sweep up on people jumping the Facebook ship. We'll see I guess.

I also have to note that Microsoft has it's own social-networking site called Windows Live Spaces, which is about 1/6th the size of Facebook. I guess they don't have much faith in their own site, or they're too lazy to make it better. Here's the approximated breakdown of size by users:

Win Live - 6 million
Facebook - 30 million
MySpace - 60 million