Facebook launches 'real' gift service

[Jazzy]

Facebook has launched a new gift service which allows users of the social network to buy and send real presents to friends.



Visitors to the Facebook will be able to buy items such as teddy bears, Starbucks vouchers, clothes and homeware. Some of the products for sale under the scheme, which is only available in a few US cities so far, are worth as much as hundreds of dollars.



Facebook will collect the credit card details of members and then allow both the sender and the receiver to track the progress of the delivery.

The gifts are also linked to birthday and event reminders which already appear on facebook.



Facebook launched a virtual gift feature on the site several years ago, but it was removed in 2010. Users were able to buy only cartoon images of items such as bunches of flowers.



The new gift service will be available on Android mobile devices and on the mobile web as well as desktop computers. The service is expected to come to Apple's iOS devices in the next few weeks. More than half of Facebook's hundreds of millions of monthly users access the site through mobile phones.



The social network will make money by taking a cut of each transaction but how much it makes from each gift depends on the deal it has reached with each vendor.



Gifts that are unwanted by recipients can be exchanged or swapped for a different color or size.

Source



Would you use this service? Why or Why not?

 

[Raven]

Whats wrong with going to a shop?

 

[Jazzy]

Wonder what Facebook plans on doing with all your personal information including credit card account numbers.

 

[Evil Eye]

Whats wrong with going to a shop?

Rain

Wonder what Facebook plans on doing with all your personal information including credit card account numbers.

Nothing much, they can't afford to lose that level of trust.

This is just another desperate money-making scheme they cooked up. Although admittedly, this one has some potential, depending on the amount of businesses they can strike deals with.

 

[Jazzy]

I would never buy something site sight unseen for a friend of mine.

 

[JetWing34]

No, because I don't use that kind of technology on Facebook, whether it's a brand new feature or not.