Did Facebook break Google's heart when it chose Microsoft?

DailyTech yesterday covered news that Microsoft and Facebook had entered into an exclusive relationship, after Microsoft beat out Google in courting Facebook.

Now Google is sharing its feelings, though it is trying not to talk too much about Facebook, which seems to be a sensitive subject.

Google spoke to reporters on Wednesday, but the event was overshadowed by Google's defeat at the hands of Microsoft in wooing Facebook. The company indicated that Microsoft overbid in wooing Facebook, and feels its own relationship with Myspace.com is much stronger. Microsoft's $240 million investment gives the company a 1.6% share -- a 51% stake in Facebook would cost just over $7 billion.

Google CEO Sergei Brin waxed, "We have a great relationship with MySpace. We probably partner with on the order of 20 different social networks."

He added, "We don't feel, at a higher level, that we need to own every successful company on the Internet. We can partner with these companies."

However, Google was unable to partner up with Facebook, likely due to the fact that it forked over $900 million to secure an exclusive advertising deal with competitor MySpace last Summer.

Perhaps Google is already deep enough in the social network scene. It has its own social network even, Orkut, which is very popular, though chiefly in Brazil and India.

Google is looking to increase advertising in its high profile customers. It gives the example of one of its top accounts, which only advertises 1 percent of its products via Google. That leaves 99 percent left to grow into, Google advertising sales president for North America, Tim Armstrong, says.

He says Google's point-and-click offerings are gaining increasing success with corporate brands. He states, "We are getting real traction for multiple reasons. Brand and search [advertising] are moving closer together."

The company could not be clearer about where it sees Facebook in the long run. Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's senior vice president of product management, explained, "At Google, we constantly feed the winners and starve the losers."

Despite losing the hand of Facebook it still looks like Google is a winner, for the most part, with an aggressive business plan which has pushed out many new services and will continue to do so. With such plans and products as Google News, the Unity Project trans-pacific cable line, and possibly even a new GPhone, Google should see continued success.

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