Facebook’s rolls out Gifts Beta for Select Mobile Users

Sites include Facebook.com . Published on October 16th, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

Facebook’s ‘Gifts’ has now started appearing in the news feed of select users. The social networking giant had announced the new feature last week which allows users to buy gifts and send them directly to their friends—all courtesy of several partnerships struck with several online retailers.

The beta roll out now sees birthday and celebration notifications along with a link allowing users to ‘send a gift. So far only Facebook for Android users are see the notification but the beta will be expanded shortly for Facebook for iOS users. The lucky users, if you can call them at, get a first-hand experience of the feature that many believe will ultimately take search traffic away from Google.

The premise behind ‘Gifts’ is simple: all 1 billion of Facebook users have birthdays at the very least; throw in weddings, engagements and pregnancies and the platform with gifts becomes a giant bazaar. Many of the early testers of the Gifts feature actually like it and feel that the helpful reminders are something of a salvation. Anyone who’s ever forgotten to buy a gift for someone in their life can attest to that.

When the feature does go live for all users Facebook stands to make millions each day from cuts from each gift purchase. The question is why Zuckerberg and co didn’t think of this sooner; users it seems have been clamoring for a feature that lets them remember and buy gifts for their friends and family. The fact that the feature is unobtrusive gives it stealth. Facebook looks to be onto a winner.

I can’t wait for the wider roll out.