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 that 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. Microsoft's new deal with Facebook is all about bolstering their existing advertising arrangement - Microsoft will now sell Facebook's international display ads, in addition to the banner ads it already sells on the US site. 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.
UPDATE: Hitwise just sent this data, which shows Facebook's growth in the US market over the past year:
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