Battelle posts the news on the Microsoft / Facebook advertising deal.

Reading the blogs, people tend to make comments like: "Good deal for Microsoft". However, on this deal and others like it (i.e. Google / MySpace and Yahoo / Ebay ), it takes TERMS to tango.

I mean what really matters is the contract, the revenue split, etc. These contracts can run to hundreds of pages, and it's certain that both parties usually think they are getting the better deal.

In the end, there's no way an outsider can make a good prediction on how valuable these deals will be and who got the better of it for 3 simple reasons:

1. You can't predict the future.
2. You didn't read the contract.
3. Even the insiders don't really know (see 1 & 2).

¶ 8/23/2006