Evsion Lab

We wrote earlier this morning that Google and Microsoft were competing for a stake in Facebook, the super-hot social networking platform. Earlier, the NY Post was reporting Google was the frontrunner. But a WSJ report has now confirmed that Microsoft won out:

"Microsoft Corp. agreed to invest $240 million for a minority stake in Facebook Inc. that values the social-networking site at $15 billion. As part of the deal, the two companies expanded their advertising agreement."

The amount invested is lower than expectations, which were around $500M. Facebook's new deal with Microsoft is all about bolstering their existing advertising arrangement - it will enable Facebook to outsource the sale of international display ads. However this deal leaves room for Facebook to run its own advertising network, which we have been discussing on Read/WriteWeb. Facebook's ad system will likely use social profiling to target ads, given the wealth of such data that Facebook has.