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CNBC is reporting that Microsoft and Facebook have signed a search and advertising deal. The partnership involves integrating Microsoft Live Search on Facebook, which will include the software giant’s search advertising. Microsoft Live Search will launch on Facebook sometime this fall, according to the report.
Currently, Microsoft serves contextual advertising on Facebook, and the company made a $240 million investment in the social network back in October. [img src="http://sale-online.click/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/facebookoffice.gif" caption="" credit="" alt=""] At the time, it was unclear whether or not search was part of the deal.
MySpace has a similar deal with Google, which includes a guaranteed $900 million in revenue to the News Corp-owned social network. That partnership has had lukewarm results so far for Google, who has indicated during its quarterly earnings announcements that it is struggling to effectively monetize social networking inventory.
These deals are par for the course for most big online media companies. For example, in addition to its MySpace deal, Google powers search on sites like AOL and The Washington Post, while Yahoo powers search at former Web 1.0 darling Lycos. While most people ultimately keep searching via their service of choice, the law of huge numbers means that at least a few people will do their Google, Yahoo, or Live searches via a partner site.