Microsoft paid $ 240 million for a tiny piece of Facebook

Microsoft, after a long trade, nevertheless agreed to pay $ 240 million for a 1.6% stake in the social networking site Facebook . This deal is very important to Microsoft. First, she managed to get ahead of Google's principal rival. Secondly, together with one and a half percent of the shares, Microsoft received an exclusive contract for advertising on the pages of a social network until 2011.



Since the transaction was officially confirmed this morning, analysts are still unable to move away from the shock. It turns out that the market value of the Facebook site for three years, which Ballmer recently called almost a “bubble” (now we understand that it was just a trade), is about $ 15 billion! Just for comparison, about the same is the worldwide network of hotels Marriott.



Founded in 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook social network increases the number of registered users by 250,000 per day. Of these, 60% live outside the United States. Currently, the audience is about 50 million people, but in the near future, according to Microsoft, it can grow to 300 million.



This transaction is a continuation of Microsoft's competition against Google. We remind you that Google is a strategic partner and exclusive advertising provider for another major social network Myspace, whose audience is still twice as large as Facebook.