Microsoft crowbars Live Search into Facebook
'Hands off my ad space... bitch'
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Microsoft has traded its exclusive deal to plaster Facebook with banner advertising for the right to pump Google-style contextual search ads on the profit-lite website.
The switcheroo was tossed into yesterday's attempt by Steve Ballmer to convince analysts that he's still the world's top chair-flinging sweaty software kingpin in the wake of the Yahoo! bid debacle.
Boydroid CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims that he isn't interested in making money and that his once-buzzy firm is focused on "adding value" for users. The truth however is that Facebook needs to demonstrate to its real customers and chiefs - advertisers and venture capitalists - that it is anything more valuable than a complicated web spam generator. Especially after the world was shocked - shocked! - to discover the site isn't really worth $15bn.
By unshackling itself from running naff Microsoft-supplied ads it hopes to build up its own infrastructure for targeting banners based on the social information users gaily hand over.
In return, Redmond will get to replace Facebook's own search effort with a Live Search box, which will allow users to scour the web without leaving the social network. It's another attempt to railroad people into using Live Search almost by default, to run alongside paying PC manufacturers and surfers.
We're not sure what's sadder: Microsoft trying to convince Wall Street it's relevant to the web search business by inserting a form field into Facebook, or Facebook having sold out potentially valuable web searches to the one corporation in the game that can't make money at it. ®
COMMENTS
A good jab when it is deserved
@AC and Steadman
One of my favorite things about the Register is its ability to lay it on when it is deserved. I cannot give direct examples or I would out myself. Suffice to say when it is deserved, they shovel away the bullshit and reinterpret the rhetoric to restate what is really being said...in a way that appeals even if your company is getting the roasting.
I would not say that they are any more prone to bashing MS or Google or Intel or AMD or whomever from my years of reading. They give all companies an equal opportunity to draw the ire...and garner the glowing praise when deserved.
Re: Fake hits in server logs from Microsoft
Thanks, AC, hadn't been aware of that until now.
Apparently MS, in an effort to spot cloaking (yeah, right) stuffs logs all over the world with fake webpage visits referred to from live.search.com.
http://fakerake.com/2007/210/microsoft-admits-to-livecom-referer-spam/
If this has the consequence of making Live seem more relevant and used than it really is, that's of course entirely unintended and hasn't occurred to Microsoft.
*yawn*
Blah blah, MS, Vista, Bad, Piss, Whinge, Bitch, Moan, Boring, Boring, BORING!
Is Google better than Live? - Yes, but Live is improving fast,
Has Vista got anything to do with the topic? No.
Do Anti-MS Zealots have anything better to do with their time? No.
Does anyone really give a crap WHO does the search in that little itty-bitty box on Facebook? NO.
I'll get my coat, be at the bar waiting for people to talk about technology rather than bitch about the people that make it. "Stella and a packet of crisps please love".
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