Almost exactly one year ago, Facebook and Microsoft were in the headlines when the Redmond, Washington-based software giant outlasted Google in a bidding war to garner a $240 million stake in Facebook. It was that investment that pegged Facebook's valuation at a whopping $15 billion.
In July of this year—following a generous amount of speculation on how the two companies would collaborate—Microsoft revealed plans for an integrated search and advertising deal that would incorporate Microsoft Live Search and advertising into the Facebook platform by fall. Today, we're seeing the first step in that integration with the release of Microsoft Live Search on Facebook.
Microsoft promises that adding Live Search functionality and advertising to the Facebook platform will improve the user experience by delivering "great search results while receiving highly relevant ads that are personalized by either my Facebook profile or search query."
Facebook claims the addition provides more relevant information to its users:
"For example, your friend may invite you to an event at a new restaurant. Without leaving Facebook, you can check out the details of the restaurant on the web. Or, say you see photos in your News Feed about a friend's recent trip to Dubai. Inspired, you can search the web for more information about travel without having to leave Facebook. Along with your search results, you may also begin to see ads for products, services or other things that are relevant to your query."
Will users find this functionality beneficial? It's hard to say. But one thing's for sure: the functionality provides yet another way to enrich the Facebook experience while keeping those users well-ensconced in the Facebook chrome.
And that's sure to be beneficial to Facebook.
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all Read/WriteWeb posts
Facebook is an advertisers dream as users stay on that site for hours a day! Oh if I had only been as smart as Mark Zuckerberg.
Jesse W.
http://www.churchofcowherd.com/
Posted by: Jesse W | October 7, 2008 5:04 PM
I have never believed in advertising, and always thought there were better ways to promote products than advertising, but Facebook has changed that. The ads on Facebook are not really ads, but useful information the ultimate goal of advertising. this is just another step forward, but I wish we were all running, the advances are taking too long.
Posted by: Peter Hodge | October 7, 2008 6:01 PM
even the spammers on facebook are more targetted than adsense
Posted by: sanimoyo | October 7, 2008 7:09 PM
The SiliconFlorist...many more good ones to come Rick. Congrats.
Posted by: Colin Crook | October 8, 2008 8:38 AM
Go Go Microsoft! Go Gadget go! LOL
www.anonymity.at.tc
Posted by: Reilley Winner | October 8, 2008 4:08 PM
It's all just a ploy to generate more hits for Live Search. Microsoft just wants to look better for its advertisers so they will get more money. They don't care if people actually care about the search engine. Just look at club.live.com.
Posted by: 1337 h4x0r | October 8, 2008 5:29 PM
Does this mean that if I post a link on my profile, that it is now deep linked because MSN Live is running the show?
Will I get more depth to my link juice now?
I was just wondering...
Posted by: TeasasTips | October 8, 2008 5:41 PM
Hmmm... interesting. I'll have to watch to see how this unfolds.
Posted by: Free Xbox 360 | October 8, 2008 6:22 PM
Silly me, when I read the title I thought Facebook was finally paying a cash dividend. Big F'cking deal.
Posted by: Chris | October 8, 2008 8:05 PM
Facebook reportedly expects to make profits of $30m on revenue of $150m this year.
So much hype on these social networking sites. They get a lot of hits but they don't make any money.
Zuckerburg should wise up and take the money and run while he still can. Traffic doesn't always = $
Posted by: Anthony | October 8, 2008 9:08 PM
I've done some limited advertising with Facebook, and it kind of sucks if you want to do local advertising only. For example, I only wanted to advertise to users in West Michigan, but there is no good way to do that with Facebook. With Google you just select the state and click on the areas you don't want. With Facebook you have to sit there and type in the cities you want to advertise to, based off of a national list. It does the intellisense type thing, just like if you are searching for a friend. I had no idea what cities were available to select, so I was just guessing the entire time.
Posted by: Rob Steenwyk | October 8, 2008 9:20 PM
The search is so gonna suck now.
Posted by: free ps3 | October 9, 2008 6:13 PM
Thank you for the concept. I'm really benefit from the advertising offer by Facebook. I manage to improve my sale. Thank you.
Posted by: bonoriau | October 11, 2008 6:09 AM
post about Facebook starting to use Live.com search today, will it make a difference?
Posted by: web design | October 14, 2008 9:55 PM