Facebook may consider bids from Microsoft and Google

Microsoft and Google have placed bids for the social network.

In what will determine Facebook's value and future, Google and Microsoft have made a bid to buy 5 percent of the social-network site to boost their advertising and awareness. The value of Facebook could rise to $15 billion and is the second most popular social site in the world.

Facebook will consider both bids from the two corporate giants for a minority stake in its Web site. The talks are private, but a source who wants to remain anonymous said the deal could be made by Friday.

Microsoft and Google are seeking advertising revenue from the social-networking site to expand their ad partnerships internationally with Facebook. The Web site has valuable user data which could allow advertisers to target consumers.

EMarketer Inc., a market research company in New York, says that advertising spending on social sites such as MySpace and Facebook may triple to $3.6 billion by 2011.

Google owns the top Internet search engine in the world and has over 74 million visitors per month. It will be important for Microsoft to maintain a good relationship with Google if both companies have equal shares in Facebook.