Facebook cuts short Microsoft banner ad deal

Facebook is taking all display ad sales in-house, cutting short a deal with Microsoft which was due to end in 2011.

Facebook had already ended the deal with Microsoft across a number of markets, including the UK, where ad sales were brought in-house from 1 January (nma.co.uk 10 December 2009).

It’s now extending this globally, with all ad sales to be taken in-house over the next 30 days.

Facebook is dropping banner ads because the company believes the format distracts from a good user experience. It will instead use its own text and image Ad Space Units format.

Microsoft will continue to be the exclusive provider of web search on Facebook, selling text-based search ads.

Last week Facebook launched a redesign of its home page as it celebrated its sixth birthday and anticipated reaching 400m users (nma.co.uk 5 February 2010).

This story first appeared on newmediaage.co.uk

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