Microsoft Woos Facebook

Close on the heels of the Google Myspace 900- Million Dollar Deal, Microsoft has started an exclusive deal to provide banner advertising and sponsored links for social networking website Facebook.

Earlier in August another networking site, MySpace.com, joined forces with Google in an advertising deal.

Search engine Google is tipped to pay at least $900m (£475m) to share advertising revenue with MySpace.com, which belongs to NewsCorp's Fox Interactive Media.

The Microsoft and Facebook deal, which will use Microsoft's online advertising mechanism adcenter, is expected to last until mid-2009.

Microsoft started adcenter in May in an attempt to compete with search engines Google and Yahoo.

With Microsoft being one of the few companies that can actually pay the asking price of facebook, does this deal signal anything?