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Facebook Gifts

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Re: Facebook Gifts

#71

Post by tatsuke95 »

gfodor wrote: post #70

I'm super bullish on this. I think this will end up being FB's first big cash cow. I never thought advertising was anything more than a stop-gap to cover costs, Zuck has always hated ads. Personally I thought their big revenue stream would probably be to start charging for FB Connect, but this makes more sense. They are basically hooking in at the right point of intent to convert a user, which is exactly why Google c…

I'm sure this is going to come up repeatedly: what can they offer me from an eCommerce perspective that Amazon can't? Like most social network benefits, I think friend recommendations, which I can and do get in real life, are overrated and useless for the majority of my purchases.

The gifting idea is quaint. But to be full-on eCommerce site, well that's yesterday's news.

Re: Facebook Gifts

#72

Post by gfodor »

tatsuke95 wrote: post #71
gfodor wrote: post #70

I'm super bullish on this. I think this will end up being FB's first big cash cow. I never thought advertising was anything more than a stop-gap to cover costs, Zuck has always hated ads. Personally I thought their big revenue stream would probably be to start charging for FB Connect, but this makes more sense. They are basically hooking in at the right point of intent to convert a user, which is exactly why Google c…

I'm sure this is going to come up repeatedly: what can they offer me from an eCommerce perspective that Amazon can't? Like most social network benefits, I think friend recommendations, which I can and do get in real life, are overrated and useless for the majority of my purchases. The gifting idea is quaint. But to be full-on eCommerce site, well that's yesterday's news.

This is going to turn Facebook into the Amazon for gifts. They capture you exactly at the right point, can (eventually) give pitch-perfect recommendations, and can get the checkout flow down to be completely painless. If they execute on this well (and I expect they will) I would guess most gift purchases will be happening on Facebook in a few years.

Re: Facebook Gifts

#73

Post by Johngibb »

SCdF wrote: post #69
benburleson wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that be empty and meaningless? Sure, it's not much effort, but it's nice to know someone was thinking of you. The fact that it's not free gives it more weight than a simple "Happy Birthday" post.

They're not thinking of you because Facebook had to remind them. Try making your birthday private in Facebook one year and see how many happy birthday messages you get when people aren't prodded by Facebook to care. It's a lot less.

That doesn't mean that people don't care. I certainly wouldn't able to remember the birthday of all my closest friends, but I do care and am glad to be reminded. On the other hand, there are of course a ton of bday wishes from people who probably don't really care, but is that really a bad thing?

Re: Facebook Gifts

#75

Post by gfodor »

3am_hackernews wrote: post #34
LaGrange wrote: post #6

Oooh, now that's the way to get real names + addresses out of people. Neat. It also involves social pressure -- now not giving away your address will mean rejecting a gift.

I think at this point you will just have to hide your birthday from fb.

And miss out on getting a bunch of stuff from my friends? Ha!

Re: Facebook Gifts

#76

Post by gms7777 »

Xuzz wrote: post #35
mnicole wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this brings about an interesting dilemma; do I really want this crap? Can I reject it or swap it for something of equal value? Store their donation and add it with others' to actually get myself something I want?

Looks like you can swap it out: https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=226108584182842#How-do-I-... ?

Would be interesting if they also added a pooling feature, where if you get multiple gifts, you can combine the original costs of all of them to get something nicer.

Re: Facebook Gifts

#77

Post by icey »

Any Facebookers around who work on this? It would be really sweet to have a few "Charitable Giving" options. The more the merrier. Everyone in my family does charitable donations for Christmas / some birthdays, and it'd be fun to do it for people who I'd normally just message.

Re: Facebook Gifts

#78

Post by arbuge »

boredguy8 wrote: post #24

"It's Mary's birthday in 3 days - send her a birthday cupcake?" I would probably click "yes" if it's Not for every FB 'friend', but there's a 'sufficiently close' threshold where, yes, I'd click that button. Even better if it's day-of fulfillment. And I bet I'm not alone.

Fat chance (pun intended) once you include s&h...

Re: Facebook Gifts

#79

Post by zacharycohn »

SCdF wrote: post #69
benburleson wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that be empty and meaningless? Sure, it's not much effort, but it's nice to know someone was thinking of you. The fact that it's not free gives it more weight than a simple "Happy Birthday" post.

They're not thinking of you because Facebook had to remind them. Try making your birthday private in Facebook one year and see how many happy birthday messages you get when people aren't prodded by Facebook to care. It's a lot less.

I've reached the number of friends on Facebook where at least ONE person is having a birthday every day.

I probably only post 10-15 "happy birthday!" posts a year. So every day I check to see who's birthday it is. If it's someone I'm close to, then I post something.

If Facebook didn't have them displayed, I would probably have those 15 birthdays written down on a real world calendar, and I'd just check that.

Re: Facebook Gifts

#80

Post by wahnfrieden »

clobber wrote: post #43
marquis wrote: post #23

"Now you can do something more meaningful" (than a hey, happy birthday call or message). It disappoints me when I hear wording like this, there is nothing more meaningful about paying money for a present that took you two clicks and is probably already part of a pre-selected group of items from their profile/history, than thinking of something to write on their wall in two clicks. All power to Facebook to make it wor…

"...pay more attention to privacy issues..." I doubt it as Zuckerberg has never cared about privacy.[1] 1. http://pleasedeletefacebook.com

Just a note: when you have one citation and it's at the end, don't bother formalizing it with the fancy footnoting. It's especially obnoxious appended to snark.
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