Facebook CFO Gideon Yu never, ever sleeps. He's helping the social network raise another $500 million, on top of Microsoft's $240 million, from two hedge funds, at the same rich $15 billion valuation. Word is that some venture-capital firms were interested in buying into Facebook so they could get some of the buzz, but were priced out of the financing round. I wonder if Sequoia Capital, shut out of earlier Facebook rounds, was still trying this time. [The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs]

You can tell that Facebook's Owen Van Natta and Microsoft's Kevin Johnson are sales guys. In a conference call announcing that Microsoft and Facebook had struck a long-expected investment and ads deal, both had the "win-win-win" patter down, along with nonanswers to hard questions. In his live coverage of the call, Silicon Alley Insider's Peter Kafka has a rundown of the dodges Van Natta and Johnson offered. After the jump, the big questions still hovering over Microsoft and Facebook's $240 million deal.

News.com's Beyond Binary blog reports that Microsoft and Facebook are close to a deal that could value Facebook as high as $15 billion. If true, it will be a heartbreaking outcome for the Google team that poured weeks into making a deal happen. But for Google itself? Not so much. We hear CEO Eric Schmidt has been a skeptic of the deal from the beginning, and he can go back to talking up Orkut, Google's big-in-Brazil social network, and Google's ad deal with MySpace. For Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who bowed and scraped in multiple meetings to make a deal happen? Well, he'll get to write a big check, and subsidize Facebook's ever-growing ad network. One outside possibility: What if Facebook got rights to sell targeted ads when Facebook users visit Microsoft-owned websites? That would be the ultimate cherry on top.

So typical for New Yorkers to think that everything comes down to money. The New York Post's late-to-the-game article on Facebook this morning had just one interesting, unreported tidbit among the rehash: The stakes in Microsoft and Google's race to invest have been raised to as high as $1.5 billion — or 10 percent of the company, valuing it at $15 billion. Frankly, I'm skeptical. While Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg would be stupid not to take all the money he can off the table, his outside investors — a list which includes Peter Thiel, Sean Parker, and Accel Partners — don't want their stakes diluted that much. Selling off that large a chunk of Facebook would shrink their collective holdings — as much as 27 percent of the company, we hear — down to less than a quarter. That's just one reason why money doesn't matter as much as the Wall Street set would have you believe.

Good to know the New York Post reads Valleywag. A story today reports that Facebook will strike a deal within two days. Down the stretch, it's looking like the race is between Google and Microsoft, with Google's Tim Armstrong, as we reported, leading the deal. The Post says Armstrong has been driving up the price to scare off Ballmer & Co., with a stake as high as 10 percent, worth up to $1.5 billion, on the table. (Photo by Jeff Kubina)

Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo — as well as a host of freelance moneybags — continue to press their offers to shower Facebook, the hot social network, with dollars and ads. And last Wednesday at San Francisco's Web 2.0 Summit, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company was close to clinching a deal. When Friday came and went without a deal, though, conference attendees where whispering about what might have gone wrong. The latest rumor, though, is that Facebook will have an announcement to make on Tuesday. How do we know that? The company has scheduled an all-hands meeting for that day.

After Valleywag broke the news that Google cofounder Sergey Brin had rushed up to San Francisco for an impromptu dinner with a Facebook investor, protestations issued from his tablemates that nothing was afoot. Why, some random Russians — Brin's countrymen — got invited! Tom Rielly, the teddy-bear Ted conference organizer, was there! Absolutely no talk of Facebook all night! Oh, really. Never was an elephant in the room less mentioned, then.

THE PALACE HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO — Thursday evening, Google cofounder Sergey Brin strode down the main hallway of this historic hotel. Pacing him step for step was Google executive Megan Smith, part of the team negotiating a fraught deal with Facebook. A Valleywag spy camera caught the pair heading into Maxfield's for dinner with an associate from Greylock closely involved in the firm's investment in Facebook. The meeting was hastily arranged only hours after Brin participated in Google's quarterly earnings call, with Brin rushing up to San Francisco. Why the hurry?

A new deal for MySpace execs Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson is worth $30 million over two years, says Silicon Alley Insider's Peter Kafka, confirming our earlier report. That's almost enough to buy a new jet. Or 0.2 percent of Facebook. [Silicon Alley Insider]

WEB 2.0 SUMMIT — On stage, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg tells an audience of hundreds that his company is "happy" with its Microsoft relationship. That, of course, would be the relationship where Microsoft has exclusive control of Facebook's display-ad inventory — the relationship that Facebook, insiders say, is desperate to wriggle out of. There's only one logical reading of this response: Microsoft and Facebook have renegotiated their ad deal, allowing Facebook to sell its own ads in the U.S. — most likely in exchange for letting Microsoft take a stake in the company, shutting out Google and Yahoo. Could this really be the end of Facebook's big-money drama? (Photo by AP/Paul Sakuma)

A News Corp. source is confirming that MySpace honchos Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe — the site's founders in name, if not in fact — have signed new contracts. How much did it take to keep the pair from bolting MySpace, even as it keeps losing ground to rival social network Facebook? It's been reported the pair demanded two-year deals worth $50 million each, but word is they got about half that. Even then, are they worth it? Here's a graph that will keep News Corp. investors awake at night.

Has Facebook already cut a deal with Google? A French blog notes that Facebook, locked in negotiations with Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo for an investment combined with an international-advertising deal, is already carrying Google's AdSense ads. It could be a test to see if Google's ads are lucrative enough to be worth the terms the search giant is offering — or just a stopgap measure to make money before a formal deal is struck. [Adscriptor]

By all rights, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg ought to be feeling drunk with power right now. He has, I'm told, term sheets in his hands from the three giants bidding for a small piece of his startup: Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo. All three, I understand, meet his demands for a staggeringly high valuation on the company — $10 billion or more. Piled up behind them are countless offers from venture capitalists and private-equity players who would be content merely to have their funds' names attached to the untouchably hot social network. So who will Zuckerberg choose?

Google is racing with Yahoo and Microsoft to take a stake in Facebook, and win some of its advertising business. As with YouTube, Google was late to get in on the Facebook deal — but again, it's making a full-court press, with some of its top people. Negotiating the deal: Tim Armstrong, Google's chief of ad sales; Susan Wojcicki, Google's VP in charge of product management for advertising; Joan Braddi, a Google VP involved with search; and Megan Smith, a veteran Google dealmaker. Armstong is leading Google's approach, but we hear Smith is playing a crucial behind-the-scenes role. She was also, coincidentally, spotted by many chatting up Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a recent party thrown by Facebook app-developer iLike.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang was spotted leaving Facebook's Palo Alto headquarters, according to Fake Steve Jobs. FSJ's blog, written by Forbes editor Dan Lyons is highly satirical, but from what we hear, a meeting between Yang and Zuckerberg right now makes all the sense in the world. [The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs]

Everyone wants a piece of Mark Zuckerberg's baby: Microsoft, Google, and now Yahoo, according to Kara Swisher. It's widely known that Zuckerberg, CEO of the hot social network, and his backers are asking for a high price on a small stake — selling 3 to 5 percent of the company at a valuation as high as $15 billion. But what no one seems to understand is the hold Microsoft has on the company, through an exclusive advertising deal that runs through 2011 — and how eager Facebook is to get out of that deal.

Yahoo executives keep touting the company's deal with a "consortium" of newspapers. But from what we hear from insiders, the "consortium" is just a bunch of paper, with no real technology designed to power Yahoo president Sue Decker's grand vision. Newspaper partners are growing increasingly skeptical that Yahoo will ever deliver. No wonder doubts are growing regarding Yahoo's grand alliance. Aside from HotJobs, the job-listings site Yahoo bought which has long partnered with newspapers, what substance is there? An insider's views, after the jump:

Felix Salmon of Portfolio thinks online auction-house eBay should sell Internet telephony service Skype to News Corp. for use in its social network, MySpace. Salmon thinks that a free calling service fits more naturally with MySpace, which is, after all, about communication. While that may be true, eBay will likely have to accept a much lower price than what they originally paid. Even Skype cofounder Niklas Zennstrom is conceding that Skype was overvalued from the beginning. If even a founder is doubtful of Skype's value, though, why should eBay strike a private deal to sell the unit? We say let the marketplace rule. eBay should list Skype on, well, eBay, and auction it off. Just imagine how much profit it will make from the listing fees.

BT and Fon have partnered to create what they claim is the largest Wi-Fi "community" in the world. "Community," in this case, meaning that participating BT broadband customers will share their home wireless networks with other members and in return will get unlimited access to Fon's almost 200,000 hotspots. Could this be the solution to municipal Wi-Fi? [Connected Internet]

As rumors grow that social network Facebook will introduce its own payment system, News Corp.-owned MySpace, still the leading social network, is teaming up with PayPal, eBay's online payments division. The partnership amounts to an experiment at this point, focusing on donations to political campaigns and nonprofits — not exactly a hotbed of MySpace activity. Wake us when you can buy concert tickets on MySpace. But the move does speak to the partners' fears that Facebook will introduce its own payment system. How to respond? Become frenemies, of course. MySpace instantly has a proven payment system without months or years of development, and PayPal gains access to MySpace's millions of users. Nothing builds partnerships faster than fear of the competition.