To be more precise, Sandberg actually told Brian Womack just how much things have changed in the past 24 or so months.  "Two years ago the big brands were experimenting with us," she said.  "They started buying with us a year ago.  Now, they’re going big."

That’s obviously good news for the social network.  Plus, considering that the economy is still less than stable, the improvement’s even more impressive than it would have been under other circumstances, and may speak to bigger gains in the future.

Anyway, Facebook doesn’t intend to let all that cash collect dust.  Vaughan Smith, its director of business and corporate development, said, "As we get bigger and our platform gets more stable, I fully expect that we will be doing more significant acquisitions.  This is working for us, and it’s working for the people that we’re acquiring."

Unfortunately, Smith didn’t name any acquisition targets, and Sandberg didn’t say exactly which advertisers have started to cut Facebook huge checks.

Still, it looks like a whole lot more money will be making its way through the social network, and that should make Facebook much more attractive to investors if and when it finally makes an initial public offering.

Fittingly enough, Perry’s office announced the development with a Facebook note.  In it, he stated, "Facebook’s expansion in Austin will enhance the area’s robust technology industry, create 200 jobs for Texans, and strengthen the economy in Central Texas."

There were also a few figures implying that $1.4 million isn’t an insane bribe, as the Texas Enterprise Fund has already doled out more than $388 million to create another 52,000 jobs.

Finally, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, said, "We’ve been exploring various options around the U.S. to establish an additional online sales and operations office and we’re grateful to the assistance we’ve received from the Governor’s office and the state’s leadership in discussing the possibilities in Austin. . . .  Austin, with its deep talent pool, would allow us to hire the high-caliber employees we need to properly serve the people, advertisers and developers that rely on our service."

Which all sounds very nice.  The one remaining step (aside from choosing a site and actually building and staffing the office) is to get the City of Austin’s okay.   A vote should take place in the near future to settle that matter.

On Facebook’s side of things, Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s COO, told Emma Barnett, "Facebook is focussing on building the best technology which helps people share content, while at MySpace they are focussing on more a content-led strategy.  We would like to have their content, as we already do with many other sites, shared across our network because it is good for our users."

Then, sure enough, Owen Van Natta, the CEO of MySpace, also contributed a quote.  "We are in talks with Facebook, and other sites, about how we could partner with them," he said.  "Partnerships are going to be a big part of our strategy moving forward as a lot of value can be derived from them."

So, although nothing’s been agreed upon, this isn’t scuttlebutt being circulated by the mail guy and an intern.

In fact, this is a fairly major development that could be taken as weakness on either side’s part – either Facebook worrying that people will jump ship to MySpace, or MySpace thinking that this is its best chance to get eyeballs – but a properly implemented partnership should benefit everyone.

It’ll be interesting to see if Facebook and MySpace can set aside their competition for users long enough to pull it off.

Related Articles:

> Twitter Makes Share Buttons More Useful

> MySpace Introduces New Music Features

> MySpace Names First Chief Financial Officer

"Nielsen is the leader in measurement and is an excellent partner for us as we look to provide marketers with richer ad effectiveness data," said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. "The combination of our unique ability to quickly and effectively poll a sample of our more than 300 million users and Nielsen’s expertise in data analysis will give marketers access to powerful data they can use to understand and improve current and future campaigns."

The companies have already announced a new product called Nielsen BrandLift, which is designed to provide marketers with "effectiveness measurement" for Facebook advertising. The product will launch in the US with select test partners this week. It is expected to roll out to all Facebook advertisers within the next few months.

BrandLift will take the form of opt-in polls on Facebook’s homepage, which will let advertisers know more of what makes consumers tick, by the sound of it. It is described in the announcement: "Nielsen BrandLift measures aided awareness, ad recall, message association, brand favorability and purchase consideration via a set of short, specially designed one or two question surveys." The surveys will appear on Facebook’s homepage where ads normally appear.

"Facebook is an increasingly vital link between consumers and brands," said John Burbank, CEO of Nielsen’s online division. "We will now be able to add deep knowledge of this important social network to our unmatched media measurement and consumer insight across all three screens."

"Together we will be able to provide the missing elements to clients seeking better understanding of how Web content and online advertising affect consumer behavior," added Burbank.

Nielsen will be conducting hundreds of BrandLift tests over the next few months. Last month, Facebook had the 4th largest unique audience in the US among all web brands.

But there’s surely enough in the beginning to last you: Impeach Obama groups are already appearing on Facebook.

Sigh.

Two things:

First: If the Bush-Cheney tag-team dump on the Constitution didn’t get them impeached, then the only way in modern America to get it done is via slutty White House interns. Who wants to appoint America’s Temptress at Arms? I vote Jessica Gomes. If she can’t get it done then we know something more disturbing than we thought about Obama.

Second: You can’t impeach him yet. He’s not really president yet and he hasn’t done anything illegal. The witch-hunt is going to have to wait until after January 20, and you’re going to have to go after a former editor of the Harvard Law Review to prove it. Have fun and good luck with that. 

Comments made among those in favor of impeaching Obama have cited his apparent loyalty to Marxist Socialism, based of course on his support for leveraging the graduated income tax system already in place to redistribute America’s wealth to Marxist programs like Medicare and Social Security and various infrastructure projects like highways and bridges. If the Socialism argument didn’t work for McCain, it ain’t working now.

Besides. It’s not illegal to be socialist, not even all the way.

Other arguments have included that he has “voiced” support for assault weapons bans, universal healthcare (what, like Medicaid?), and that he’s a smoker Muslim Arab. Again, voicing isn’t illegal and an assault weapons ban is debatable not impeachable, and neither being a smoker, nor Arab, nor Muslim is illegal, and in this case all are untrue.

I address these things as though this particular Facebook community can hear me, and as though I need to anymore, and as though their cry into cyberspace is worthy of a response. But it’s still not clear as to whether this group is serious, or just playing, and they seem to be serial president impeachers, one member acknowledging they were prepared to impeach McCain, should he be elected.

The other thing is that Facebook COO and former Google executive has written a missive for the HuffingtonPost defending former and possible future Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. The last time you heard of Summers, he was being shamed out of Harvard by feminists because he said girls just can’t do math.

Some people (feminists in particular) are little upset about his possible appointment in Obama’s cabinet. Sheryl Sandberg writes:

"Larry has been attacked by some in the women’s community for remarks he made about women’s abilities. As he has acknowledged himself, this speech was a real mistake. What few seem to note is that it is remarkable that he was giving the speech in the first place – that he cared enough about women’s careers and their trajectory in the fields of math and science to proactively analyze the issues and talk about what was going wrong. To conclude that he communicated poorly — and even insensitively — is fair. To conclude that he is opposed to progress for women overlooks the fact that improving this progress was precisely the subject he was addressing.

"Many people note that our nation has few economists with his intelligence. They should also know that we have few leaders, if any, in the financial world who have done more for women."

And to add to that: Feelings are for social theory; smarts is for economics. He could be anti-cute-puppy for all I care so long as he fixes the economy, if that’s at all possible.
 

    Sheryl Sandberg – (Photo Credit: Google.com)

Sandberg will be the first female executive at Facebook.  She also, if you get our hopefully polite drift, possesses a little more wisdom than is usually found among employees at that company.  We think both of these facts make her more of a good choice.

The most interesting thing about Sandberg, though, is her work experience.  Sandberg is currently the vice president of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google.

Kara Swisher reports, "Sandberg is responsible for online sales of Google’s ad and publishing products . . . .  She is also politically savvy, having been the chief of staff at the Treasury Department in the Clinton administration."  Color us impressed.

Corporate moves often don’t take place quickly, yet a Facebook spokesperson has stated that Sandberg will start on March 24th.  It seems Facebook has adopted an intentional (and advisable) "the sooner, the better" approach.