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Microsoft and Facebook have reached an agreement according to which both the companies will enhance their advertising partnership. The prior will have an equity stake of $240 million in Facebook’s upcoming round of financing at a valuation of $15 billion. With this deal, Microsoft will be Facebook’s third party exclusive advertising platform partner.

Furthermore the software and service solution provider will start selling ads for the social network in the U.S. as well as world wide.

According to Facebook’s Chief Revenue Officer, Owen Van Natta:

We are pleased to take our Microsoft partnership to the next level.

We think this expanded relationship will allow Facebook to continue to innovate and grow as a technology leader and major player in social computing, as well as bring relevant advertising to nearly 50 million active users of Facebook.

Microsoft’s President of the Platforms & Services Division, Kevin Johnson, on this alliance said:

Making this investment and expanding this partnership will position Microsoft and Facebook to better take advantage of advertising opportunities around the world, and is a great win for not only for our two companies, but also our collective users and advertisers.

Furthermore Kevin said:

We have partnered well over the past year and look forward to doing some exciting things together in the future. The opportunity to further collaborate as advertising partners is a big reason we have decided to take an equity stake, and is a strong statement of our confidence in the long-term economics of this partnership.

The social network is growing fast in the U.S. market as well as the international arena. U.S. contains 40% of the Facebook’s users while the rest are scattered world wide. Right now 200,000 new users are registering to the site of the social network every day.

Back in August, 2006, both the companies agreed on a U.S. only strategic alliance according to which Microsoft was named as an exclusive provider of standard banner advertising on Facebook with the help of its digital advertising solutions and the platform of Microsoft^® adCenter. The deal was extended till 2011 last year.