While there have been a number of .NET libraries for the Facebook Platform for some time now, today Microsoft is releasing the official Microsoft SDK for Facebook Platform. There are a number of core benefits to this upgrade including the ability to easily view native Facebook Platform methods within the Microsoft Development environment with intellisense. While Microsoft previously demoed applications build using the Facebook library within Microsoft applications, this is the first official rollout of the libraries.
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This morning Kara Swisher broke the news that Microsoft will be using Facebook and Twitter updates to integrate into the Bing search engine. While we don’t know how many users make their status updates public, it appears that those who do will have their statuses integrated into Bing search. So will this new integration help Bing steal market share from Google? Not necessarily because it appears that both Facebook and Twitter are also talking to Google, according to Swisher.
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Today Microsoft announced a partnership with Facebook to give full integration into XBox live. The announcement involves two new features. The first is an application that you can download to your XBox which will provide you with a robust Facebook experience including photos, videos, friend linking, and access to your stream/news feed. Additionally Facebook Connect will be available to all XBox games, enabling gamers to publish their activity directly to their Facebook feed.
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer paid “lip service” to a Yahoo! deal and cleverly set the stage for acquiring Facebook, during his keynote at the Digital Hollywood Media Summit.

Yahoo!’s stock price shot up on the news of his comments, but I think the press and the markets are missing the big picture: Microsoft’s is using the “potential Yahoo! deal” as a red herring with investors. Ballmer is using Yahoo! to convince the market that Microsoft needs to buy Facebook to compete with Google, and to set a price floor of 50 billion for the acquisition.   Microsoft may be facing a situation where Facebook usage grows so fast that its costs skyrocket, creating a cash crunch, and in this difficult fundraising environment it’s best bet is just to buy Facebook.
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Yesterday Erick Schonfeld posted that Google should buy Facebook. He admitted that it was something that probably won’t happen but asserted that Facebook and Google should partner together to integrate people search and general web search. Yes, Google has the upper hand when it comes to search but Microsoft is investing heavily in search and I would argue that their “investment” in Facebook at the ridiculous $15 billion valuation, was not an investment but merely a down payment.
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Last year when Microsoft invested in Facebook at a $15 billion valuation I doubt they expected Yahoo! would soon fall below that level. As of yesterday’s closing price, the company now has a market capitalization of $12.67 billion, over $2 billion less than Microsoft valued Facebook at. Facebook is now valued at around $4 billion according to leaked reports about internal stock sales.
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