Google paid up to create its enviable list of internet friends. Those include MySpace, AOL and Ebay. Microsoft’s roster looks puny by comparison. No wonder it fought so hard against Google to hang on to its relationship with Facebook, the hot social networking site. Facebook appears to have negotiated a great deal. It gets a cool $240m of extra cash to build its business, parts with a paltry 1.6 per cent stake and gets to boast a $15bn valuation.

What about Microsoft? Superficially, $240m does not seem a crazy price to pay for securing its existing deal with Facebook on US display advertising and broadening it to include the rest of the world. After all, Microsoft’s advertising platform has so far failed to get significant traction compared with Google’s and needs partners to try to jumpstart it. But the Facebook valuation is huge for such a young company, particularly when it is yet to make a profit. The deal brings no serious influence for Microsoft, let alone control, over Facebook. And it does not appear to include search-based advertising, which could be a significant opportunity in the future. Google might yet get another shot at a relationship with Facebook on that front.