Get Your Facebook Gift Cards, Now

If you haven't heard, Facebook is now a public company. That means that the experience has, and will continue to change into eternity now that the company has to turn a profit to satisfy shareholders. Facebook has been cramming ads into feeds left and right, and is even experimenting with an option that'll let users pay real money to send a message into someone's Facebook Inbox. But here's a money-making idea that feels a lot less forced: gift cards. The new Facebook Card is a new twist on a familiar concept, and considering that giving is always better than getting, it might just make you feel warm and cozy within.


Starting this week, people can give their friends gifts to Jamba Juice, Olive Garden, Sephora, and Target all on one reusable gift card from Facebook. Users just select a gift for their friend from the Gift Cards & Digital category, select a value, and pay. The lucky friend will be notified instantly about your gift, and will receive a Facebook Card in the mail a few days later. Moreover, the cards are reusable, so if you gift that same person again, you can just add it onto the existing plastic. Even wilder, the card can hold multiple gift balances, and each balance is dedicated to the retailer associated with the gift. For example, you might have gift balances of $100 at Sephora, $75 at Target, $50 at Olive Garden, and $8.25 at Jamba Juice.

The ability to send a Facebook Card gift will roll out gradually to people in the US, but there's no word on when other nations will get it. There's also no word on when other retailers will join in on the fun, as the selection is quite limited for now. It's also curious that this is an "offline" solution -- people will still need to wait for a physical card to arrive in the mail. Perhaps this is a way for Facebook to bridge the divide a bit and cater to its users that still prefer receiving things they can hold. What about you? Would you consider sending one of these to someone?