Google and Microsoft have more than each other to contend with in the lucrative market for Internet advertising. Increasingly, when Web surfers want information online, they're bypassing those rectangular search boxes on the home pages of Google and Microsoft's Bing and getting it instead from places where they already spend lots of time: social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

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Microsoft also announced a deal with Facebook on Oct. 21 that will eventually incorporate Facebook users' public messages into Bing search results. That capability isn't available yet, however. About 19% of Web users post or read status updates, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

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