

Introducing the Facebook Card, a New Type of Gift Card - derpenxyne
http://newsroom.fb.com/News/569/Introducing-the-Facebook-Card-a-New-Type-of-Gift-Card

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nakedrobot2
Why would I want to use this? It will result in Facebook tracking more of my
(or the benefactor of my gift's) movements, and then selling that info (or
letting it leak out via sleazy apps that steal all my info)

Is this solving any problem or filling any hole in the market? Of course it's
filling facebook's data hole in that they can't currently track what I buy.
I'll keep that between myself, the retailer, and my bank. Thanks anyway.

~~~
stephengillie
Example: If you have a friend who likes Jamba Juice, and you wanted to get the
person a gift card.

Are you going to spend the time to actually find a Jamba Juice and go there to
buy a gift card? Or are you going to just click "buy as a gift for Friend" on
Facebook?

Another option is to buy the gift card at another store, but then you're just
filling Safeway's data hole or Target's data hole instead of Facebook's. Is
that better?

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stephenr
Seriously who buys gift cards for a shop that sells drinks?

More importantly - a gift card in a shop can be bought with cash if you
choose, and even if I used a credit card, my bank doesn't show me ads because
I shopped somewhere

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j_s

      > Seriously who buys gift cards for a shop that sells drinks?
    

I had to re-read that several times, trying to decide if your 'Seriously' was
seriously serious or not...

<http://www.statisticbrain.com/starbucks-company-statistics/>

    
    
      > Starbucks Company Statistics
      >  Year  Value of Gift Card Activations
      >  2011  $820,500,000

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stephenr
Oh of course I forgot we're talking about Americans.

I should have asked what sane person buys a gift card for a shop that sells
drinks.

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mnicole
Jamba Juice is one thing because it isn't on every street corner, whereas
buying Starbucks cards for people you know spend money on coffee every morning
is not a bad investment. Furthermore, with Starbucks' cards, it allows you to
start redeeming points for more drinks and gives you incentive to keep re-
upping the value to earn those points. I get a free drink/food item every two
weeks from what started as a gift card that turned into a gold card. Do I have
a consumption problem? Sure. But it was a benefit to my already-shitty
lifestyle and I can't complain.

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tiziano88
I just don't get gift cards. Why would I give someone 20£ and then force them
to spend them in a particular shop, rather than giving them cash or
transferring money through the bank? It is a honest question, I've never given
or received a gift card, I might just be missing something obvious.

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EliRivers
"Why would I give someone 20 and then force them to spend them in a particular
shop"

Why _wouldn't_ you do that, if the circumstances suggested it? It's a way of
giving someone some freedom in choosing their gift, while restricting it to a
range.

Maybe I want to buy someone a really nice suit, but I know they'd never do it
themselves; they just can't bring themselves to spend a lot of money on a nice
suit - they permanently dress in cheap clothes from discount stores. If I give
them cash, they feel guilty for spending it on a suit, and also guilty if they
_don't_ do that, because they know I wanted them to spend it on a nice suit.
Gift voucher ahoy. I'm sure you can imagine other circumstances.

Others that leap to my mind are; forcing someone to buy books instead of
blowing it on alcohol and skateboards; making it harder for someone to buy
drugs with it (there are always ways to launder gift vouchers, but the
discount can be huge); giving gift vouchers for some place they really love as
a way of demonstrating that you've actually thought about it.

When someone gives me cash, it suggests to me that they haven't put in any
effort. I'd rather they got me something that cost a fiver but they actually
know I like, than giving me a twenty. I already have some money and from the
point where I started working full-time, unless someone is going to give me a
life-changing amount of money, they might as well not bother. A well thought-
out gift-voucher can be a half-way house.

Furthermore, when you give someone money (unless you give a life-changing
amount), it just goes into their pocket with the rest of their money. Some
will go on an electricity bill, some will go on food, some will be train fare,
it'll all just disappear in things they were going to do anyway. Unless they
were living on the breadline, you've made no difference - there is nothing
that they have, or did, that was because you gave them some money. You might
as well have not bothered. Money - it's the gift people don't even notice.

~~~
xd
"When someone gives me cash, it suggests to me that they haven't put in any
effort."

Why would you assume someone has to make more than the effort of working for a
pay check, and then giving you some of that hard earned cash to do with as you
please?

But then you go on to say; "unless someone is going to give me a life-changing
amount of money, they might as well not bother." .. what the hell, dude?

~~~
EliRivers
"Why would you assume someone has to make more than the effort of working for
a pay check, and then giving you some of that hard earned cash to do with as
you please?"

Did they get up in the morning thinking "today I'm going to work hard so I can
give that guy a nice present"? No. At some point they thought they'd better
give me something, and reached for the easiest, most convenient thing they
had. Some money. The bare minimum of thought went into it. Why do I want more
than the bare minimum of thought? Because that's what friends do. More than
the bare minimum. I spend hours and hours, sometimes spread over several
weeks, thinking about and finding great gifts for people, because I genuinely
like seeing my friends made happy by unexpectedly receiving something they'll
really get a lot of pleasure out of.

" "unless someone is going to give me a life-changing amount of money, they
might as well not bother." .. what the hell, dude?"

What? What's not to understand? Someone gives me a twenty. I already have a
twenty. I have more than one. If there was something I wanted to buy with it,
I already would have. Unless I'm living at the point where I am right on the
breadline, one grocery bill from poverty, I won't even notice it (as above,
it'll go into the pot marked "money" and just go on some bill or some tax or
the rent or whatever). Sad but true; I have made enough to comfortably pay my
bills with some left over. If they had stopped off somewhere and spent a five
on something they really know I'd like, something that required them to think
and spend some time, it would show real effort on my behalf. Sometimes the
clichés are true; it's the thought that counts.

~~~
stephenr
So giving you $50 cash is lazy but buying you $50 of fucking juice is a well
thought out present? Or giving you $50 to spend in a department store is
better than $50 cash you can spend _anywhere_. It isn't more personal its just
more restricted.

Gift cards are like food stamps for middle class people. You may as well
include a note saying "now don't you spend this on drugs".

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dmschulman
Does Facebook really drive that kind of commerce? Micropayments on Facebook
games is one thing, but I remember a time when you could buy little badges and
icons for your friends to place on their wall. That didn't last too long.

Not to mention the hum drum partners FB is pairing with. Olive Garden? Really?
Facebook's new monetization strategy is to do what the checkout lane at my
local supermarket has been doing for years.

~~~
micampe
_> Facebook's new monetization strategy is to do what the checkout lane at my
local supermarket has been doing for years._

If you put it that way Google’s monetization strategy is what Yellow Pages has
been doing for decades. Does’t seem to be working that bad so far.

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hadem
I can barely trust Facebook when it comes to privacy settings. Personally, I'd
never mix finances with Facebook.

~~~
derpenxyne
By the converse opinion, if you actually set the privacy settings on Facebook,
and Google for that matter, to your comfort level, your data is probably more
secure than if you weren't using Facebook or Google etc.

~~~
webwanderings
I think by now it is obvious that issue is not about privacy anymore rather
how these gigantic companies are "using" your data to their advantage, and not
really yours!

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mnicole
I can totally see the desire for multi-vendor gift cards, but I'd almost
rather see a company like Simple handle that, not a brand synonymous with
shady practices and the rest of my personal data as-is.

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calciphus
Amex and Visa do this already. Facebook is just the entry point for Discover,
the least-accepted-credit-card in America.

~~~
mnicole
Ah right, I didn't think about that. Chase also has the Liquid card now, but
it costs a monthly fee.

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JSadowski
It looks like this is just a prepaid credit card with dedicated balances for
each merchant. While I'm sure Facebook has buy-in from the merchants (as they
are using their logo and other brand marks), in theory Facebook could offer
gift cards for arbitrary merchants. At POS Facebook just uses the merchant
identifier to determine which balance to approve funds and subtract from --
aside from that, it works like a normal prepaid credit card.

~~~
ch
It doesn't appear that this is the case. This is more like a multi-gift-card
(not sure of any technical term for it) than a pre-paid credit card. From all
I can see, you can't use it to make purchases at any merchants other than the
ones which have balances on the card. This is much like the Verizon Visa Gift
Card that was being given out when you would sign up for certain FIOS
services. It was a Visa credit card, except it was not able to be used at any
Visa accepting merchant, but only Verizon approved merchants. Hardly a normal
pre-paid credit card.

~~~
JSadowski
That's my point... from the merchant standpoint there is no additional
integration required... they just process it as a credit card. Facebook limits
the spend based on the merchant identifier that gets sent to them from the
POS. Basically they've created a multi-gift-card using existing credit card
technology without the partners needing to update their POS to support it.

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agotterer
I think it's a smart move. I doubt this will directly be a major revenue
stream. But there's more at play here. FB has been trying to figure out ways
to track and collect retail data for a while. Remember beacon? This seems like
an interesting way to start understanding what you buy and where. Thus making
advertising even more efficient.

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stephengillie
_Beginning today, people can give their friends gifts to Jamba Juice, Olive
Garden, Sephora, and Target all on one reusable gift card from Facebook._

Looking at their initial retail partners, they have a beverage store,
restaurant, cosmetics store(?), and big-box retailer. For contrast, they
aren't starting with Starbucks, Cheesecake Factory, CVS, and Sears.

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millerc
I love it. This may very well be the first monetization attempt I can tolerate
from Facebook: it's (finally) a win-win scenario for all parties involved, and
it makes a superb use of both the social graph and the fact that nowadays
every aunt, uncle and nephew have an account on Facebook. Brilliant.

Looking forward to try it here in Canada.

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hinathan
So will FB (eventually) make a timeline post on my behalf when I buy coffee?

