Facebook unveiled a new program Thursday that lets users give real gifts — from $5 Starbucks cards to more expensive treasures, like Jawbone's Jambox wireless speaker ($200) — and can be done instantly, from an Android phone, and in coming weeks, the iPhone.
While Facebook has offered the ability to offer virtual gifts, most recently in the form of Facebook credits, and has apps to use for gift-giving, Facebook Gifts can be done right from your Timeline. The program is made possible by Facebook's acquisition earlier this year of gifting service Karma.
Lee Linden, Karma's founder, told TODAY.com that Facebook is the perfect venue for gift-giving, as people are increasingly sharing "life's important moments" on the social network, and sharing them immediately in many cases.
"We realized that there's nowhere else that people go to share, celebrate and share sentiments more than on Facebook, whether it's 'Happy birthday' or 'I'm thinking of you,'" he said. The new service offers the "combination of real moments with real gifts."
The service, being rolled out today in "random" areas of the U.S., will give Facebook a much-needed boost in monetizing its mobile platform.
Gift-givers can choose from a range of presents, including cupcakes, chocolate, socks, T-shirts, offered by 100 partners in the program.
A new tab on the Timeline, "Gift," lets a user start the process, which "takes about 60 seconds," Linden said, and is "as easy as it is to attach a photo." Gifts can also be sent from Facebook birthday reminders.
Notice of the gift shows up on the recipient's Timeline, although the gift giver can also make it "100 percent private," so that just the recipient sees it, Linden said.
The recipient can remove the gift from their Timeline before they open it, if they want to do so in private, "in which case no one will see the gift," he said.
When you get a gift, you can unwrap a preview of it on Facebook; the real thing shows up on your doorstep "a few days later."
Recipients can also swap their gift for another from the company — say you get a gift of dark chocolate but only like hazelnut, or you get a Navy medium T-shirt, when you're size large and want it in green — and the gift-giver will never know that.
Because the impulse to send a gift often "happens in the moment, and it might not be convenient to pull out your credit card right away," you can arrange to "send your gift and pay later, or pay right away," Linden said. The actual gift won't ship until you have given your credit card information.
As soon as a gift is actually sent, the recipient gets a notification via their mobile phone or computer, Linden said.
Gift-givers also don't need to know the recipient's address; in fact many of them don't, when it comes to Facebook friends.
"We think people don't know a lot of the mailing addresses of their friends, so with Facebook Gifts, we let the gift recipients choose where they want the gift delivered or sent," he said. (You can learn more about the program here.)
Good intentions aside, what about stalkers or someone a recipient may not want sending them a gift?
"You can always decide whether you want to accept a gift from a friend or not," said a Facebook spokesperson. "Any unopened or unaccepted gifts will be automatically canceled later."
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