The online retail giant's new Amazon Birthday Gift allows people to join together to send Amazon gift cards with birthday messages on Facebook. June 18, 2013 7:14 AM PDT Amazon now allows users to send gift cards to friends on Facebook. (Credit: Amazon) Amazon just made it a little easier to send birthday gift cards to friends on Facebook. The Seattle online retail giant on Tuesday launched Amazon Birthday Gift, which allows customers to send friends electronic gift cards on their birthdays. And customers can invite mutual friends to contribute, so the gift can be much higher. You start the process ahead of the friend's birthday by going to Amazon's site. After logging into your Amazon and Facebook accounts and connecting the two -- which allows Amazon to collect information about you and your friends -- you'll be shown a list of your friends with birthdays in coming days. You can then click "start a gift," which allows you to write a birthday message and select the gift card amount. The total can be $1, $5, $10, or $25, and for a limited time, users can get a $3 credit from Amazon. After you select the total, you're allowed to preview the message that will be delivered to your friend's Facebook timeline on his or her birthday. You can then select mutual friends to contribute to the gift. On the actual birthday, the many individual birthday messages will appear on the person's timeline along with links to claim the gift. Amazon Birthday Gift allows users to give Facebook friends gift cards. (Credit: Screenshot by Shara Tibken/CNET) Gift giving through social media has been picking up steam over the past year. Facebook in late 2012 launched Facebook Gifts to allow users to send actual presents to their friends on the social networking site. Of all the products that Facebook unveiled last year -- and there were many as the company amped up its efforts to make more money off its billion-plus users -- Gifts is one of the biggies, certainly in terms of potential. We've contacted Amazon for more details about how Amazon Birthday Gift relates to Facebook Gifts and will update the report when we have more information.
The online retail giant's new Amazon Birthday Gift allows people to join together to send Amazon gift cards with birthday messages on Facebook.
Amazon now allows users to send gift cards to friends on Facebook.
(Credit: Amazon)
Amazon just made it a little easier to send birthday gift cards to friends on Facebook. The Seattle online retail giant on Tuesday launched Amazon Birthday Gift, which allows customers to send friends electronic gift cards on their birthdays. And customers can invite mutual friends to contribute, so the gift can be much higher.
You start the process ahead of the friend's birthday by going to Amazon's site. After logging into your Amazon and Facebook accounts and connecting the two -- which allows Amazon to collect information about you and your friends -- you'll be shown a list of your friends with birthdays in coming days.
You can then click "start a gift," which allows you to write a birthday message and select the gift card amount. The total can be $1, $5, $10, or $25, and for a limited time, users can get a $3 credit from Amazon.
After you select the total, you're allowed to preview the message that will be delivered to your friend's Facebook timeline on his or her birthday. You can then select mutual friends to contribute to the gift. On the actual birthday, the many individual birthday messages will appear on the person's timeline along with links to claim the gift.
Amazon Birthday Gift allows users to give Facebook friends gift cards.
(Credit: Screenshot by Shara Tibken/CNET)
Gift giving through social media has been picking up steam over the past year. Facebook in late 2012 launched Facebook Gifts to allow users to send actual presents to their friends on the social networking site. Of all the products that Facebook unveiled last year -- and there were many as the company amped up its efforts to make more money off its billion-plus users -- Gifts is one of the biggies, certainly in terms of potential.
We've contacted Amazon for more details about how Amazon Birthday Gift relates to Facebook Gifts and will update the report when we have more information.
