What does Microsoft have to show for its $240 million Facebook investment? An ever-diminishing presence on the site. Facebook's redesign no longer features Microsoft-sold ads on some of Facebook's most-trafficked pages.

AdWeek's Brian Morrissey reports that "Microsoft banners will run across the site, but will no longer appear on the homepage and user profiles." Instead, Facebook's largely automated direct-sales operation will sell placements for one large slot or two smaller slots on the right side of each page. These ads might be video ads as well as static text over image ads, Morrissey reports. A source tells us Facebook's ad units are also changing to a more standard size — a move that will make them easier to sell.

One has to think this is why Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hired Sheryl Sandberg as his COO. Up until now, instead of visibly rationalizing Facebook's wild-and-wooly ad operations, Sandberg's been flexing her muscles inside the company by extinguishing all signs of fun, from games of beer pong to all-night hackathons. At last, she's taking out her Machiavellian will to power on a deserving target: Big, bad Microsoft.