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Boy wonder Mark Zuckerberg and company announced today that Microsoft infused their little social platform with $240 million in cash for a 1.6 percent share. This puts Facebook’s value at $15 billion, which makes MySpace’s purchase price fall somewhere between pocket change and one car payment, relatively speaking.

And so ends the flurry of blog posts and newsbites regarding the tug-of-war between Microsoft and Google. Microsoft will serve international banner ads on the Facebook site, and Facebook can continue their plans to expand their targeted ad network.

The other obvious win for Microsoft is that it gains footing in what has become the most successful open web-based operating platform while still in its infancy, a move which will (hopefully) provide some meaningful competition to Google’s efforts on the web-OS front.

This can only be good for the rest of us. I would expect to see some cohesive form of social network/web OS come out of Google soon, integrating what has become several interconnected but disparate service applications. A little competition never hurt anyone.