Starting today, you can show your Facebook friends how much you love them, by giving them an Amazon gift card, and you can show them how well you can rally your friends by getting more people to contribute to the gift.
The basic idea is that you can select a gift amount for a friend’s upcoming birthday and then invite friends to “pitch in” to add to the amount. The entire amount will post to the friend’s timeline on their birthday. Voila!
All right. Neat idea, but I’ve got concerns. I wasn’t a fan of Facebook’s introduction of a gifting feature. It seems like we’re moving more toward “you’re only a great friend if you spend money on me.” I agree that remembering birthdays is a good idea, and yes, Facebook does make it easy. But the Amazon/Facebook partnership either adds to the guilt factor (I suppose I really should respond to this invitation to add more money to the gift card) or makes it easier to just throw money at people (if I get him a gift card, I’m done).
One question I haven’t found the answer to is “does the recipient see the ‘friend breakdown?’” Since you can contribute in amounts as small as $1, I hope not. I don’t see any good coming from “Hey! John only thought I was worth $1. At least Sally thought I was worth $10.”
Maybe I’m just being a scrooge. I suppose I might change my tune if a fat gift card shows up on my timeline in a couple of months.
