Microsoft continues to develop and introduce strategies designed to increase its share of the search engine market, and the latest initiative involving an evolution to the existing partnership with Facebook is by no means an exception from the trend. Following the launching of the SearchPerks program at the start of October, the Redmond company announced that Facebook would integrate Live Search. The marriage between the social networking platform and the software company's search engine is valid only for the U.S. market.

“We're excited for our friends at Facebook. Now Facebook users in the U.S. have the option to 'Search Facebook' or 'Search the Web'. In addition, adCenter is delivering search ads alongside those results. For me that means getting great search results while receiving highly relevant ads that are personalized by either my Facebook profile or search query,” explained Angus Norton, Senior Director, Live Search Product Management.

Facebook's Leah Pearlman indicated that the adoption of Live Search is meant as an innovative step in the evolution of the social networking hotspot's user experience. Focused exclusively on U.S., the new search capabilities of Facebook are bound to increase Microsoft's share of the search market on home ground. According to statistics made available by comScore, Live Search dropped to 8.3% of the U.S. search market in August 2008, representing 977 million queries.

Although Microsoft continues to tout a search war against Google, fact is that the Mountain View search giant attracted in excess of 7.4 billion queries in August for 63.0% of the market. This means that even with the Redmond giant attempting a variety of tactics and tricks, Live Search's relevance in comparison to Google is diminishing from month to month, and in this context, the Facebook partnership is unlikely to change the equation. As of October 2007, Microsoft invested no less than $240 million in Facebook.

“This is a great first step in our partnership. As we evaluate user feedback and results we'll explore additional ways to integrate Live Search more deeply into the Facebook experience. We'll have more to share on this partnership in the weeks to come, so stay tuned. In the meantime, tell us what you think on our Facebook page,” Norton added.