Facebook on Friday rolled out Facebok Gifts for mobile phones, a program that allows the social networks users to send physical gifts in digital form.
Facebook purchased social gifting service Karma back in May and promised to make the gift buying experience easier. The new program allows a gift to be sent even if the buyer does not know the recipients physical address.
Once a present has been chosen and purchased from a list of over 100 retailers, an alert is sent to the receiving party. That alert can be delivered either through a private message or directly to their timeline.
The receiving party can then choose to “unwrap” their present on screen and then adjust the color, size, or flavor of the item. Receiving parties also have the choice to exchange the gift for something of equal value.
Once the receiving party agrees to accept the gift, they just enter their address for delivery and the item is sent to their chosen address.
The Facebook Gifts program will slowly roll out to customers through the United States. If successful, users in other countries could also find themselves sending gifts to Facebook friends right from their mobile phones.
In the meantime, we can likely expected to see many more revenue generating programs rolling out for Facebook as the company battles investor concerns over a lack of revenue being generated by the company’s popular mobile apps.
Can you envision sending a virtual gift to someone over Facebook mobile?
