Even reading the title of this sent me into a downward spiral of intense paranoia/hatred/annoyance/terror. Was gift giving not already enough of a stilted, rote interaction? Do we need to systematize EVERYTHING!?! Is there no escape from this? What have we become?
Facebook Gifts
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Re: Facebook Gifts
#92Even reading the title of this sent me into a downward spiral of intense paranoia/hatred/annoyance/terror. Was gift giving not already enough of a stilted, rote interaction? Do we need to systematize EVERYTHING!?! Is there no escape from this? What have we become?
You sound like you could use a gift.
Re: Facebook Gifts
#93I'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…
And just imagine if Facebook did something like acquire Pinterest. You now instantly have their wish list for birthday (and holiday) gifts.
Re: Facebook Gifts
#94Earlier 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.
My google calendar reminds me of birthdays. Is it google who cares and not me?
Re: Facebook Gifts
#95May be Facebook will open it's Gift market place to finely-tested eCommerce businesses through an API!!
This is more meaningful, because Facebook doesn't want to be an eCommerce company. It's vision is connecting the world. And it makes more sense to open the platform to external businesses which are tested for 'great experience'. In this way Facebook itself will not have to be another eCommerce company and it can have just enough control, share and work over the platform.
Re: Facebook Gifts
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
My google calendar reminds me of birthdays. Is it google who cares and not me?
You were pro-active and took steps to remember the birthdays by sticking them on your calendar. It's different from clicking on a link because Facebook remembered someone's birthday.
Re: Facebook Gifts
#97Anyone remember the old Facebook gifts? The ones that were virtual? People even paid for those! I think people will for sure participate in this. Who doesn't want to extend a nice gesture to their friend.
I do. I'm not aware of anyone I know actually buying anything, we were always searching for the free ones when it was birthday or flirting time. But then again, university students have a lot of time to invest into free.
For some reason I've had 4 Facebook credits on my account since that era even though I never bought any.
Re: Facebook Gifts
#98May be Facebook will open it's 'Gifts market place' to finely-tested eCommerce businesses through an API!!
This is more meaningful, because Facebook doesn't want to be an eCommerce company. It's vision is connecting the world. And it makes more sense to open the platform to external businesses which are tested for 'great experience'. In this way Facebook itself will not have to be another eCommerce company and it can have just enough control, share and work over the platform.
Re: Facebook Gifts
#99"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.
That's my issue with this. My 'friend' list isn't really a list of friends. That's not Facebook's fault[1] though.
[1] arguable?
Re: Facebook Gifts
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Just a few more poorly measured statistics from me:
I have 1200+ friends, have about 10-15 birthdays a week. Never post on their walls, don't have my birthday listed. Get maybe 10-15 wishes a year on my wall. Text/call about 10-15 people a year (not including family). Before I removed my birthday, I had about 700 friends and would get around 100 wall posts.
Going to try an experiment where I make a random day my birthday, delete all the posts that catch on to the fake birthday, and then change it to a month later. Will post results.