Facebook on your computer, phone, and now in your wallet
In the last 15 days, Facebook has made three major announcements. The first was the Facebook Graph Search, a way to search profiles en masse. The second was the results of the fourth quarter of 2012; Facebook did well, much to the shock of many Wall Street watchers. And the third, just announced today, Facebook has come out with its own reusable gift card.
Facebook will soon allow users to send 鈥渇riends鈥� a gift card to places such as Sephora, Jamba Juice, Olive Garden, and Target. According to Facebook, these gift cards are not just reusable but they can carry multiple gift amounts.
鈥淵our 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.鈥�
The gift card will automatically reload when another friend buys the cardholder a gift amount.
The release comes the day after Facebook its earnings for the 2012 fourth quarter. The social network reported a higher profit than expected. In the fourth quarter, Facebook revenue grew by 40 percent, raking in $1.59 billion. Wall Street had expected $1.53 billion in revenue.
However, despite the good outcomes, the company鈥檚 high expenses appear to have pushed away聽some investors. reported that Facebook shares lost 6 percent today, resulting in $29.27 per share.
At yesterday鈥檚 report, Facebook also announced ways to increase revenue. Among suggestions such as cutting costs and higher mobile ads, Facebook publicized its plans to polish the Gifts products. According to the report, the Gifts product makes almost no revenue. CNET that Gifts was placed into the 鈥渙ther revenue鈥� category. That category made an unimpressive $5 million in the fourth quarter.
"This past quarter, payments and other revenue also included around $5 million from sources outside of games primarily user promoter posts and to a lesser extent from our new Gifts product," CFO David Ebersman said, according the CNET.
The Facebook Gift Card has only been announced for a few hours and already the critics have begun to review it.
鈥淚t takes the saddest and lamest gift possible and makes it worse,鈥� Gizmodo blogger Mario Aguilar. 鈥淭here is a potential upside, though. Assuming everybody in the world starts using Facebook for their lazy, last-minute gifting, all of your balances will be tied to your Facebook account and a single reusable card.鈥澛�
CNBC鈥檚 Julia Boorstin , 鈥淲e'll see if Facebook can establish itself as a go-to-player in online retail鈥攖he more people who hand over their credit card numbers, the more likely they'll spend money on Facebook down the line.鈥�
Only time will tell if the Facebook Card will work its way into people鈥檚 hearts (and wallets). For now, the Facebook Card is only available in the US and on a rolling-out basis.
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