Stealing a page right out of a startup called Aggregift’s playbook, Amazon today launched a new feature called “Amazon Birthday Gift,” which allows a group of Facebook friends to go in on an Amazon.com Gift Card together. That gift isn’t posted to the recipients’ Facebook Timeline until their big day arrives.

To get started with the service, a user buys an Amazon.com gift card, then invites other mutual friends to donate using the Birthday Gift website here. When the birthday arrives, the recipient is tagged in a Facebook Timeline wall post, receiving the digital card and everyone’s birthday greetings.

The new addition is a further expansion of Amazon’s deepening integration with Facebook, as the company last December launched a “Friends and Family Gifting” feature just ahead of the holidays to generate Facebook-enabled gift suggestions, send out reminders, and enable gift list sharing via both email and social networks. Online competitor Walmart, too, had previously launched a similar Facebook-based gift recommendation service in 2011, which was added to the Walmart.com site ahead of the 2012 holiday season.

Social gifting is still very much in the experimental phase, despite the support from e-commerce giants like Walmart, Amazon and others. For instance, Facebook has also dabbled in this area with the fall 2012 debut of Facebook Gifts (built on top of former social gifting startup Karma). The service is meant to tie into one of Facebook’s most regular draws — its birthday reminders. The idea is that users could visit the site, and in addition to wishing their friend “happy birthday,” they could also add a gift to accompany that message. The social network offers gifts like iTunes digital Gift Cards and physical goods, and it even launched its own self-branded “Facebook Card” earlier this year.

However, even with Facebook’s broad reach, its Gifts service has been struggling to generate serious revenue, and certainly falling short of earlier projections and estimations regarding its potential. Meanwhile, some startups like Sincerely (with Sesame) and recently funded Wrapp, carry on in this space, while others head off in new directions. Giftly, for instance, exited to GiftCards.com this March, while Boomerang has turned its focus to the B2B market instead in recent months.

That being said, Amazon still has a shot at winning the social gifting space with its new Amazon Birthday Gift feature, since it can be argued that users don’t associate Facebook’s brand with spending or shopping the way they do with Amazon. (See also: various f-commerce struggles). Plus, Amazon’s cards are the go-to for the “generic” gift option, which people buy when they don’t know what to get, or when they need something last minute.

However, the new service is still limited today to smaller gift amounts ($1, $5, $10 and $25), which can be a challenge for those attempting to raise funds for a larger present like an electronics purchase. Plus, being tied only to birthdays eliminates the big holiday, graduation or wedding presents users may want to go in on together. Often these larger presents are led by a close family member or friend who puts in a big chunk of change, to which others pile on. Not supporting these other types of gifting narrows the already potentially narrow market for digital, social gifting even further.

Amazon Birthday Gift is live now here for interested users.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

There is a very real “crunch” going on at the Series A and Series B levels of funding, as a number of startups that launched to great enthusiasm a few years back are having trouble getting more support from investors nowadays. That’s especially true for companies with a heavy focus on the social web. But Wrapp, the social gifting service, has shown that it is not another victim.

Wrapp is announcing today that it has closed on $15 million in fresh funding to continue to grow its business, which is jointly based in Stockholm, Sweden and San Francisco, California. The round, which serves as Wrapp’s Series B, included participation from existing Wrapp investors Greylock Partners, Atomico and Creandum, along with new investors American Express, Qualcomm Ventures, and SEB Private Equity. This brings the total amount invested in Wrapp to $25.5 million.

Wrapp co-founder and COO Carl Fritjofsson swung by TechCrunch TV on his latest visit to San Francisco this past week to give us a hands-on look at the latest version of Wrapp and discuss the new funding, and you can check it all out in the video embedded above. He said that the fresh money comes after a period of solid growth for Wrapp, which allows people to give their friends presents such as gift certificates to certain stores. More than 1 million users have gifted more than 15 million gift cards through the service, he says, with more than 200 retailers worldwide providing gift cards through the platform as a marketing tool.

Going forward with the new funds, Fritjofsson says that Wrapp is going to focus on more growth in its existing areas — and evolve the product in new ways. “We’re moving slightly beyond the pure friend to friend gifting” to extend its focus onto more comprehensive platforms and tools for the businesses who are catering to those users, he said.

Also in the video, we also talked about how Wrapp compares to other players in the space, most notably Facebook and its Karma acquisition which is now Facebook Gifts (that portion of our chat starts at around the 7:00 minute mark), what the experience in general was like raising a Series B during this general crunch (that starts at 5:30), more about what the future holds for Wrapp (starting at 8:00), and lessons learned from building a multi-national startup (that starts at 9:04.)

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Facebook has a new “schedule gift” feature for its Gifts product, which allows users to buy something for a friend, but notify them at a later date. Previously, recipients would receive a notification immediately after the gift was purchased.

Now, when users get to the review page after selecting a gift and writing a card, there is a section where they can choose when to notify the recipient. The default is to notify the friend now, but users can also pick a day up to two weeks in advance. This option gives Facebook Gifts an additional convenience now that users can buy a birthday gift or something for another special occasion ahead of time, rather than having to complete the purchase the day of.

The social network used to offer scheduled gifts from its virtual Gift Shop in 2009, but it hadn’t brought the feature to its new Gifts product until now. The old Gift Shop was primarily a way to share virtual stickers on a friend’s Wall, until it was shut down in July 2010. The new Facebook Gifts, launched in September 2012, focuses on physical gifts, like food, wine, home goods and tchotchkes, as well as digital goods like gift cards and subscriptions to streaming services.

There is not a way to schedule the delivery of a gift for a particular day because Facebook Gifts asks the recipient for their address when they are first notified about the gift.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Commerce and payments platform Marqeta today announced that it is the company providing the technology behind the Facebook Card, a gift card that can hold balances for a number of retailers or restaurants simultaneously.

Marqeta had agreed with Facebook not to disclose this until now. The announcement came as part of news about Marqeta’s latest round of funding: a $14 million Series B from Greylock IL, Granite Ventures, Commerce Ventures and a number of new angel and strategic investors.

The company’s +M Platform connects online and offline commerce through prepaid loyalty programs, similar to the Starbucks Card. It also allows prepaid amounts from multiple merchants, which is what Facebook is taking advantage of for its card. Facebook Card is a resusable gift card that can be loaded with balances for different businesses when a user’s friends buy them gifts through the social network.

When Facebook Card launched in January, Target, Jamba Juice, Olive Garden and Sephora were the only partners, making it not very compelling. It has since added Walgreens, Burger King, Outback Steakhouse and Staples — still quite limited and user awareness still seems to be very low. We haven’t seen Facebook make any efforts to advertise this offering, though it has been promoting Gifts overall across the platform.

In general, Gifts have been slow to take off, in part because of confusion about what Gifts are. Some users, remembering Facebook’s virtual gift shop from a few years ago, don’t realize the new Gifts are actual physical and digital goods. Others are skeptical because they think Gifts are a third-party app, not something from Facebook. Still others might not be using the product because they feel Facebook is not personal enough to send friends and loved ones presents through, or they’re concerned about providing their credit card information to the social network.

Until Facebook can better address users’ concerns and convey the benefits of Gifts — users don’t need to know a friend’s address, they can share the Gift on a friend’s wall or keep it private, payment information is secure — the product is unlikely to come into widespread use. If it can position it as a convenient but intimate way to show someone they care, then Gifts and Facebook Card might start to fulfill their potential as new stream of revenue for the company and shape commerce like Marqeta and Facebook seem to intend.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook is testing a new way to encourage users to buy gifts for their friends by including a call to action within the comments section of a post.

SocialFresh CEO Jason Keath shared the example below, blurred for privacy, which says “Surprise Ty with a gift.” This is a different take on the “give a gift” button that some users had been seeing in their News Feed next to posts where their friends had shared good news.

Facebook is still trying to find the right user experience for Gifts, which so far hasn’t taken off among users. In the fourth quarter of 2012, Gifts and user Promoted Posts jointly generated $5 million in revenue. Facebook said Gifts were responsible for a smaller portion of that total. In its latest earnings report for the first quarter of 2013, the company did not provide any numbers on how much revenue Gifts or other non-game payments generated.

Last month, Facebook redesigned how users buy Gifts from their friends’ Timelines. Instead of making Gifts part of the publisher to write on someone’s Timeline, it is a separate button in between “message” and “call” on the user’s cover photo.

On a person’s birthday, the Gift prompt is even more prominent with a module on the left hand side under the user’s profile picture.

Gifts is still for the most part limited to the U.S., though since the start of April, international users have been able buy gifts for their friends in the U.S.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook today announced “Trusted Contacts,” an update to its “Trusted Friends” security feature that sends access codes to a few of a user’s close friends in order to help the person regain access to their account when needed.

Users will now be able to designate their Trusted Contacts in advance and change them if necessary through the Security Settings dashboard. Previously, users only encountered this feature when they were having trouble with their account. This meant that many users were unfamiliar with it. By making Trusted Contacts part of a user’s main settings, more people might understand what it is before they have a problem — or before they are called upon as a Trusted Contact themselves. This will help users be able to use the feature more effectively.

Facebook says it has also improved the flow for people who are their friend’s Trusted Contacts, giving them more information throughout the process of helping someone get back into the account. They’ll also be notified when they are selected, another way to help people understand the feature in advance. Some users are often wary of unfamiliar Facebook features, suspecting they might be part of a scam. We’ve heard from users who didn’t initially trust Facebook’s Offers or Gifts products because they thought they were third-party spam. Something like Trusted Friends with access codes to let another user log into their account might have seemed too suspicious to some. The changes today could help avoid that.

Starting today, users can set up their Trusted Contacts by visiting their Security Settings and choosing three to five friends to help them when they need it. Facebook recommends choosing friends that a user would be comfortable giving a spare key to their house. It’s also important to choose people that can be reached outside of Facebook messages, since a locked out user won’t be able to contact them this way.

When a user is unable to log into their account and can’t use the email password recovery system, they can then have an access code sent to these Trusted Contacts, who then share the code with them in person, on the phone or another trusted means of communication. Facebook warns against using email, chat or text, which can be easier for someone trying to impersonate a user and take over their account. When the user gets the access codes from three different friends, they can then put these into Facebook and recover their account.

Facebook says it offers this instead of giving users long forms to fill out or asking security questions like “What street did you grow up on?” which users often forget or which could be easily known by someone besides the user.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook plans to announce its 2013 first quarter earnings tomorrow after the stock market closes.

Analysts expect earnings of 13 cents per share on revenue of $1.44 billion during the period of Jan. 1 to March 31. In Q4 2012, which included the holiday season, Facebook had earnings of 17 cents per share on revenue of $1.585 billion.

Here we’ll review the changes Facebook made in the first quarter across each of its areas of monetization.

Ads

Last year advertising made up 84 percent of Facebook’s overall revenue. In the first quarter of this year, the social network introduced new targeting capabilities and made a number of adjustments to the look and performance of its ads. The company also continued to ramp up the amount of ads in News Feed and on mobile, adding a three-in-one “Pages You May Like” unit and a new type of Page-Like ads to the mobile feed.

Partnerships with data vendors Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom and BlueKai opened up the opportunities for advertisers to reach new audiences based on third-party data, such as offline purchase behavior. This feature was in limited beta during Q1, but rolled out more widely as “partner categories” earlier this month.

Lookalike Audiences, which help advertisers target users similar to those in their Custom Audience databases, was another exciting new beta feature for advertisers last quarter. Facebook launched it globally in March.

A tool that was available for most advertisers throughout the quarter was conversion tracking. This allows advertisers to measure and optimize their ads leading off-Facebook. It’s particularly important to direct response advertisers and app developers.

Other improvements for DR advertisers were an increase in the size of link previews in News Feed and a redesign for mobile and desktop, which could make ads larger, more visual and even more effective. Facebook also launched a small test to introduce Facebook Exchange Ads in the desktop feed just before Q1 ended.

Tests of the “Promote Page” button, which rolled out globally today, might have started to have in impact on SMB advertising last quarter.

Game Payments 

Developer fees from in-game purchases make up the vast majority of Facebook’s payments revenue. In Q4 2012, only $5 million of its $256 million in payments revenue was from sources besides games.

Facebook announced last quarter that more than 250 million people play games on Facebook each month. The company also said it has seen an increase in users who spend money in Facebook games monthly.

Facebook did a number of things in Q1 to optimize its channels for game discovery and promotion. It tweaked the recommendations bar on canvas games to increase installs 5x over the last several months, improve the bookmarks bar menu 17 percent, notifications 15 percent, and App Center 30 percent. The company also promoted games in a homepage banner earlier this year and started running new News Feed stories about the games a user’s friends play.

However, Zynga, which has made up a large portion of Facebook’s payments revenue in the past has seen drop-off in revenue as players shift to mobile. That could have an impact on Facebook as well, though the social network has been seeking to diversify its platform with international developers and a better range in game genres.

Gifts

Facebook says that it expects Gifts to continue to grow slowly, but believes it could be a big business over time. For now, the company is working to get the user experience right. It is for the most part limited to the U.S., though at the start of April, Facebook began letting international users buy gifts for their friends in the U.S. That happened after Q1 had ended so it wouldn’t have an effect on revenue.

At the end of January, the social network introduced Facebook Card, a resusable gift card that can be loaded with balances for different retailers when a user’s friends buy them gifts through Facebook. It launched with very few partners, Jamba Juice, Olive Garden, Sephora and Target. Since then, Facebook has added Walgreens, Burger King, Outback Steakhouse and Staples, but awareness of Facebook Card still seems very low.

Facebook has expanded its overall Gifts inventory significantly and added many more options at lower price points. The company ran a promotion to give users $4 off a gift of $5 or more. This enabled users to send users to, for example, send a $5 Starbucks gift card for only $1. The social network also heavily promoted Gifts around Valentine’s Day, created a new dashboard with a user’s purchase history and prompts to buy more gifts for friends, as well as began inserting Gift calls to action within News Feed next to stories about friends with good news.

User Promoted Posts

Another small revenue stream is user Promoted Posts, which enable users to pay to get their personal posts to the top of their friends’ News Feeds. Facebook said this feature made up the majority of its $5 million non-game payments revenue in Q4 2012.

This February, Facebook expanded the feature to allow users to promote posts their friends made.

Paid Messages

At the end of 2012, Facebook announced a small test that will allow some users to pay to send direct messages to another user’s inbox rather than their “other” folder. This started as a very limited test in the U.S., but has expanded to the U.K. now as well.

Most messages cost $1 to send to a user’s inbox, but for some celebrities and popular figures, Facebook is testing higher price points, up to even $100 to message CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook and Timelines Inc. begin trial today in a case over the social network’s “timeline” profile feature, which Timelines says infringes on its trademark over the word “Timelines.”

Timelines Inc. operates Timelines.com, a website for people to create and collaborate on historical timelines. The company sued Facebook in September 2011 after it debuted an overhauled profile page it called “timeline.” Timelines Inc. has registered trademarks for “Timelines,” “Timelines.com” and its “Timelines” logo. The company is seeking damages “equivalent to Facebook’s Timeline-derived ad revenue,” according to Bloomberg.

Facebook asserted that its use of “timeline” was generic and it requested a summary judgment to prevent the case from going to trial. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied Facebook’s motion, and now the companies will face a jury.

Here’s a breakdown of Timelines’ and Facebook’s arguments. Note that the case is over the use of the word “timeline,” not the design or functionality of Facebook’s profile.

Palo Alto-based Wanderable, a 500 Startups-backed company designed to help couples create wedding registries filled with “honeymoon experiences” instead of just gifts, is now available on the iPhone. With the new app, a couple can create their registry on the go, view and track the gifts they receive, and then snap photos to accompany thank you notes which are sent out directly from the app itself.

The startup was co-founded by Jenny Chen and Marcela Miyazawa, former Stanford computer science classmates, as well as friends. Miyazawa says she was inspired to create the service after getting married herself, and being stumped as to what to add to her registry. “I had already been living with my boyfriend then – my husband now – for several years. I couldn’t think of anything to register for – I don’t need plates, I don’t need cutting boards, etc.” she adds.

Miyazawa ended up using HoneyFund to build her registry online, but felt the experience was less than ideal. Others in this busy space include sites like TheHoneymoon, The Big Day, HoneyLuna, Honeymoon Wishes, Traveler’s Joy, RegistryLove, and NewlyWish, for example.

“It’s such a great concept, but it’s so poorly done on other websites,” Miyazawa explains. “Other sites either take such a big percentage of your funds – from 8 to 10 percent – or, if they’re free, they have Google Ads…and it felt terrible to have ads on the registry,” she adds.

Instead, Wanderable takes only 5 percent of transactions on its site, split between the givers and the couple. The site finds other ways to generate revenue – such as through its $9.99 gift boxes that allow guests to package their “experience gift” in a box covered in pretty, handmade wrapping paper. The box contains a note from the wedding guest, as well as details about the experience purchased – like cocktails on the beach, excursions, dinners out, and more.

The company also offers concierge services, and is now working with resorts on private label registries, too. This would allow a hotel to host its own branded registry. Wanderable has partnered with BedandBreakfast.com, and Miyazawa notes that a large, undisclosed resort in Hawaii is currently piloting the private label option, too.

In terms of the newly launched mobile app specifically, Wanderable for iPhone offers a scaled down version of the registry, allowing couples to add and edit items from their handheld. It’s not limited to “experience” gifts either – but could be used to register for anything the couple wanted, including big-ticket items which guests could choose to go in on as a group.

However, the standout feature of the app is the “thank you” note option. Using the iPhone’s camera, the couple can take a picture of their gift or of themselves enjoying the activity the guest had helped fund. That picture is then turned into a personalized thank you card which is mailed out (that is, snail mailed!) to the gift giver. Currently, Wanderable is using the Sincerely API for this, but hopes to bring this feature in-house in the future.

Since its debut last January, the company has attracted “thousands” of users to its service, but Miyazawa declined to provide details on exact numbers, transactions, or growth.

Wanderable currently has a small (quarter of a million) seed round, funded by 500 Startups, as well as angel investors including Elliot Loh, Amos Elliston, and others.

The new iPhone application is available for download here in the Apple App Store.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Facebook has started to expand its Gifts product beyond the U.S., according to users in the U.K., India and Canada who say they got access to the service this weekend. However, it seems that international users can only send gifts to their friends who live in the U.S.

Facebook launched Gifts in September 2012 as a way for users to buy physical and digital gifts for their friends via desktop or mobile. The product rolled out to all U.S. users by mid-December, but hadn’t been available in other countries until now.

U.K. reader Matt Navarra sent us this screenshot of his Facebook homepage on Saturday. Inside Network contributer Pete Davison says he saw a similar prompt about Gifts today.

From the Gifts dashboard, users will see a note that they can send gifts to their friends and family in the U.S., Navarra says. Majestic Media Managing Director Mario Zelaya tells us he’s able to access the same dashboard from Canada.

Pravin Jadhav tweeted about Gifts launching in India on Friday.

Smart! Starbucks comes to India. Facebook launches gifts in India. Now you can gift Starbucks Coupons to friends on Facebook.

— Pravin (@beingpractical) April 5, 2013

Like in the U.K. and Canada, Gifts in India can only be sent to users in the U.S., according to reports from MediaNama and Techcircle.in.

This expansion increases the potential audience for this new monetization channel. So far, Gifts seems to be growing slowly. Facebook made $5 million from non-game payments in Q4 2012, a portion of which came from Gifts, but CFO David Ebersman said that user-promoted posts were the primary source of that revenue. Ebersman said he expected Gifts to continue to represent a small percentage of Facebook’s overall business as the company experiments with the design and functionality of the product. Facebook is due to report its first quarter earnings of this year on May 1.

Allowing users to buy gifts for their friends outside of the U.S. is a greater challenge. In November, the company added a job listing for a customs and trade manager, which could be related to making Gifts available more globally. That position is still listed on Facebook’s careers site. Another job focused on strategic partner development for Gifts is also available.

Facebook hasn’t responded to our requests for more information.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook