Facebook/Microsoft v. Google

Alex Iskold at Read/Write Web says: Google is worried, but they shouldn’t be because social networking and search are different businesses.

Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch says: Google was scared off of the deal because it was too sweet for Facebook and the search company wasn’t interested in people-based search.

John Battelle says: Facebook wins because they took Microsoft’s money, but they might have a hard time living up to the $15bil. valuation.

Josh Catone at Read/Write Web says: Microsoft wins because Facebook will add a Microsoft search bar to the system, driving all their traffic to the boys in Redmond. This can only help MS, who are now the #3 search player.

In all of this news, to me the most interesting revelation is that Facebook is clearly making a play to take over the web-as-platform model. If they can make their site the home-base for not only social networking, but, with the Facebook Platform, web apps, widgets, and content, they are going to be trying to take down Yahoo as well. From that perspective, this looks like a really canny move by Microsoft.