Marketing Pilgrim

Facebook and Microsoft have been linked in the news before—especially after a deal last October where Microsoft purchased a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240M. This year we’ve seen multiple reports this year that Microsoft might buy the social networking sweetheart.

Microsoft has had a limited search and advertising deal with the social network for almost two years and their deal last fall included contextual ads. But a new deal launching this fall would be a bit different—it would include integrating Microsoft Live search as the site’s search engine, and would include results from the web (including Microsoft’s paid listings) at large.

News of the deal comes from a transcript of a call as part of Analyst Day. Head of the search unit, Satya Nadella, ended his remarks in the call (mistranscriptions corrected):

One last thing I want to talk about is an extension of our Facebook relationship where we are extending it to search and page search.

We will be providing an API to Facebook where they will create a rich search experience for the Facebook users and that is something that they will launch in the fall working with us. And it will carry both our web results, as well as our page search advertising. We are excited about using that as an opportunity to further expand the Live Search reach.

As Read Write Web points out, this deal mirrors the Google/MySpace deal, however, Google’s deal hasn’t exactly worked out well for them yet.

Financial and exclusivity details were not disclosed. Any guesses?

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