Facebook Launches New Gifts Service

As it stands, you can do a lot with Facebook. You can stalk your ex-lovers, you can show the world pictures of what you'll be eating for dinner, and you can annoy almost every single one of your Facebook friends at the same time by constantly posting statuses of a political nature. Soon, you'll be able to buy your friends real world gifts though Facebook with a new service called – you guessed it – Facebook Gifts.

Announced today, Facebook Gifts allows you to purchase a gift for any of your Facebook friends and have it delivered to their door. Did your friend just have a baby? Buy them a teddy bear. Did your friend just get dumped? Buy them a batch of cupcakes. Perhaps you have a friend who can't function without caffeine? Good news for them, because it appears that Starbucks gift cards are available through this service as well.

Once Facebook Gifts has been fully implemented, you can buy a gift for your friends through birthday or engagement notifications or directly through their timeline. You don't need to know their address as they'll be the one who enters it in, and bad gift givers have no reason to fear – recipients will be able to choose the size, color, and flavor of their gift, and if they really don't like it, they can exchange it out for something of equal value.

Facebook says that this new gifts service will roll out gradually, but those in the US will be getting it first. There isn't a time frame for the full roll out of Facebook Gifts, likely owing to the social network's nearly 1 billion users around the world. Facebook promises more information on Gifts soon, so we'll update you once new details are made public!

[via Facebook Newsroom]