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The
development gives Microsoft control over
placement of banner ads on Facebook outside
the US thus targetting an estimated 60 per
cent of Facebook's users. The software giant
has already reached agreements to sell US
banner ads for Facebook through 2011.
Facebook
is amongst the most popular social networks
on the block, growing by 2,00,000 registered
users every day. According to Businessweek,
its traffic has more than doubled over the
last one year.
If
not anything else, the Microsoft-Facebook
transaction reflects the rising valuations
for social networking websites. The $15
billion valuation for Facebook makes the
$580 million News Corp buyout of Myspace
as an outright bargain.
Microsoft's
Platform and Services division president
Kevin Johnson said, "They have the
opportunity to get to 200m-300m users, we
think that’s in the realms of possibility.
If you combine that with monetisation and
modest average revenues per user, then you
can get very quickly to these valuations."
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