"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 work though: maybe if they can monetize themselves through means like this they'll pay more attention to privacy issues as they will have less incentive to make everything public for advertising/selling data.
I'd rather get a message from someone than a cupcake with no personal message any day of the week. When I was a child and I cared more about material objects that the people around me and whether or not they care for me, I would have picked the cupcake. But I don't use Facebook either, so I guess this whole Gift's thing doesn't really apply to me.
True, but just because it's not very meaningful doesn't mean people won't use it. We don't live in an ideal world. If we did, nobody would buy prewritten greeting cards or flowers, which are essentially the same thing as a Facebook gift: Something that shows you care without requiring much thought.
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.
All power to Facebook to make it work though: maybe if they can monetize themselves through means like this they'll pay more attention to privacy issues as they will have less incentive to make everything public for advertising/selling data.