On Monday, Google bought Titan Aerospace, developer of solar-powered drones that may purportedly fly uninterrupted for years. It's yet another move in the ongoing race between Google and Facebook to build (and control) the next big expansion of the internet -- in developing countries.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the acquisition of Titan Aerospace by the internet giant, after months of rumors that Facebook was in talks to buy the company for as much as $60 million.

Google didn't disclose the amount it took to get the New Mexico-based drone company on board, but Google purportedly offered to top any offer from Facebook, according to the WSJ's unnamed sources. But now we know why Facebook went ahead and bought U.K. solar drone startup Ascenta for $20 million late last month.

On Titan Aerospace's website, the company was clearly thrilled about joining Google -- enough that it replaced its usual home page with a message about the acquisition, even including some "early days" Googlespeak:

"At Titan Aerospace, we're passionate believers in the potential for technology (and in particular, atmospheric satellites) to improve people's lives. It's still early days for the technology we're developing, and there are a lot of ways that we think we could help people, whether it's providing internet connections in remote areas or helping monitor environmental damage like oil spills and deforestation. That's why we couldn't be more excited to learn from and work with our new colleagues as we continue our research, testing and design work as part of the Google family."

Tapping Emerging Markets

Both Titan and Ascenta are in the business of developing solar powered, high-altitude drones that can continuously stay aloft for extended periods of time. As Facebook has made clear in its "Connectivity Lab" white paper, part of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Internet.org initiative, these types of drones or "atmospheric satellites," can be an integral part of providing wireless internet connectivity in places without the usual infrastructure required for internet access, like telephone lines, cable networks, or cell towers.

Both Google and Facebook are increasingly in the business of finding ways to connect the estimated 5 billion people who are not yet connected to the internet.

Whether it's Facebook's Open Compute, Internet.org and Facebook For Every Phone, aimed at creating efficiencies in mobile data, apps, and transmission to reach new customers, its purchase of WhatsApp, which is basically the cheapest worldwide text messaging service, or Google's Project Loon, which is a plan to beam internet down to customers from high-altitude geosynchronous balloons -- both IT giants have multiple initiative to be the first to bring emerging markets to the internet, and thus to snatch up brand new customers and untapped markets.

Latin America and Emerging Markets

Latin America remains one of the prime examples of the kinds of markets that Google and Facebook want to expand into, along with parts of Asia and Africa. LatAm, in particular, has recently been heating up as the next big driver of worldwide smartphone sales and internet connectivity.

In 2013, smartphone sales, for example, increased 53 percent from the previous year in Latin America, with some countries like Brazil skyrocketing to an 89 percent sales increase in the first quarter of 2013 alone.

While device manufacturers are shifting to meet the particular demands of Latin American markets, and relative startups like Firefox OS are partnering with Latin American telecoms to try to get a foot in the door of the next big internet boom, internet penetration in Latin American countries still remains generally low -- and in the case of some countries like Venezuela, controversial and at the mercy of the government.

For Google and Facebook, wireless internet delivery from the stratosphere has the advantages of not needing much of public infrastructure in place to work, and not needing to push (or work with) governments to develop that infrastructure in order to deliver the internet. But don't expect Google and Facebook internet-drones hovering around the world any time soon. Both companies are placing long-term bets on internet expansion and hooking new customers to their particular service, but both companies have a lot of technical problems to conquer before its close to a reality.

Still, imagine a future where Facebook and Google -- once a simple social networking site and an internet search engine, respectively -- are two competing giants with entire swaths of the Earth hooked up to their particular internet, aloft on balloons, satellites, and/or UAVs. It might someday be the case.