Facebook has been suggesting that you give gifts to your friends on their birthdays and when they get engaged or married for some time. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Facebook has just begun to add a “give gift” button inside statuses that feature some sort of keyword trigger. For instance, we’ve spotted the new feature inside statuses about new babies, new jobs, and more.

Now, it looks like Facebook is really hammering the gift idea home by suggesting you give gifts to your friends that are simply in the middle of a big life event, even inside statuses that have nothing to do with said life event.

Let me explain:

My friend just had a baby. Yesterday (congrats!). As expected with Facebook’s new feature, a “give a gift” button appeared on one of her statuses last night. It said something about the baby and quoted his measurements. It’s clear that those keywords tipped Facebook to suggest that I give them a gift in celebration.

But today, I noticed that another one of her statuses had the “give a gift” prompt inside of it. This status has absolutely nothing to do with the baby or any other big life event, for that matter. See?

So, it appears that Facebook is giving people who announce big life events some sort of blanket congratulatory period. And inside that period, even statuses that don’t actually reference the life event will still come equipped with the suggestion that their pals give them a gift.

Clever move, Facebook.

Some users have spotted a “Give a Gift” button attached to certain posts by friends – mainly when they’re sharing good news such as landing a new job.

Facebook has already incorporated gifts into live events that are part of the official profile structure – we’re talking birthdays, engagements, and marriages. Those kind of announcements will appear on the top right-hand of your news feed (on desktop) and inside the news feed (on mobile). Clicking on those life events prompts users to “Give a Gift.”

But this is something entirely different. Facebook looks to be testing a system that would identify major life accomplishments (like getting a new job) when spoken about in status updates, and prompt users to give gifts in celebration.

When Facebook first launched Gifts way back in September of last year, I joked that it was the end of the simple “like” or comment being an acceptable form of congratulations – for anything. By working Gifts into more and more situations, Facebook is pushing for Gifting to become the normal way to celebrate a friend’s life achievement.

Of course, this seems to be a limited test as it’s not wide to all users. Facebook runs dozens and dozens of tests every month, many of which never see primetime. But since Facebook is looking for more ways to generate real revenue from Gifts, I suspect that this is a type of test that we’ll be seeing more and more of in the coming months.

[via Inside Facebook]

And as you may have guessed, they’re using the real estate to promote Facebook Gifts, the ecommerce initiative first announced in September 2012 and rolled out to all U.S. users in December.

“Surprise Your Valentine,” says the prompt, alongside the profile picture of your significant other. My specific prompts suggests that I “add Honey Jelly Beans to your list of Valentine’s Day surprises for *insert name of my wife.*”

You can click on one button to buy the suggested gift via Facebook Gifts, or another to browse more gifts. It’s a simple and clever way for Facebook to push their Gifts initiative on a day where plenty of people are scrambling to find last-minute presents for their loved ones.

Facebook also has a “Valentines for All” section in the Gifts app, featuring items $30 and below.

I assume that Facebook is displaying similar prompts to other users that are in some sort of a relationship. Although I’m not sure whether or not the prompt changes depending on the type of relationship (married vs. it’s complicated, for instance). I’ve reached out to Facebook for more info on the Valentine’s Day Gifts box and will update this article accordingly.

UPDATE: Facebook tells me that it’s out to people in the U.S.

Soon after launching their new ecommerce platform Facebook Gifts, the social network began suggesting that you send friends a gift when it’s their birthday. Suddenly, a cheesy Timeline post ceased to be enough. Facebook wanted to promote the new Gifts platform by attaching it to birthdays – which is understandable.

Now, it looks like they’re taking it a step further by suggesting that you gift friends with a Starbucks e-gift, specifically.

Facebook told Business Insider that this is an “experiment.”

We’ve noticed that if the birthday boy or girl “likes” Starbucks, that information will show up alongside the Starbucks logo. That way, you’ll know that getting him/her a Starbucks gift card would be a good idea. You know, because they “like” it.

It’s unclear what the arrangement is here, and whether Starbucks (and presumably any other Facebook Gifts partner) would pay for the birthday suggestions placement in the future. As with all Facebook “tests” or “experiments,” there’s always the chance that it will never reach a large audience. But something about this one makes me feel like we’ll be seeing more and more of it as Facebook looks to further promote and monetize Gifts.

This “new type of gift card” is simply called the Facebook Card. It’s an actual gift card that you’ll get in the mail, pre-loaded with an amount from one of the retailers mentioned above.

The Facebook Card is part of Facebook Gifts, and that’s where you head if you want to give it to one of your friends. Once you open up Facebook Gifts, simply choose the “Gift Cards & Digital” category. Up until now, that category only offered iTunes gift cards and then various types of digital subscriptions – Hulu, Rdio, magazines, etc. When the ability to send a Facebook Card gift rolls out to you, you’ll see the aforementioned retailers listed in the category.

Once you select a gift card amount, let’s say $50 to Target, that amount will be loaded onto the Facebook Card and shipped to the recipient.

“Facebook Cards are reusable. After you’ve received a card, the next time you get a Facebook Card gift, it will instantly be added to your existing card. Your 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,” says Facebook.

So the Facebook Card is like a giant, overarching gift card for your gift cards. At least, that’s what it could become once Facebook gets more retail partners. Let’s say you wanted to give someone a $25 gift card to Sephora for their birthday. Instead of going to the mall and picking up a specific Sephora gift card, all you’d have to do is give them the $25 gift via Facebook Gifts and it will pop up as an available balance on their Facebook Card.

Once this feature rolls out, users with Facebook Cards will be able to check their balances at various retailers in their Facebook account settings. You can also receive notifications whenever the balance on your Facebook Card changes.

So if you have friends and family across the country (or simply don’t want to have to deal with the ones near you) and want to send them a present this holiday season, Facebook has just become one of the places where you can do it.

First, head on over to Facebook. There are two ways to open up the Gifts feature. You can either find the Gift icon on your desired recipient’s Timeline…

…or visit Facebook.com/Gifts, select “Give a Gift,” and enter your recipient’s name:

Next, you need to select your gift. Facebook starts off by showing you “recommended gifts,” but you can click on that to access a drop-down menu with all the available categories. Right now, that includes Food & Drink, Fun, Wine, Home & Kitchen, Beauty & Body, Fashion & Accessories, Flowers, Baby & Kids, Pets, and Gifts That Give Back (charitable donations).

Once you select your Gift, Facebook will give you all the details. This includes shipping details, ingredients, flavor or size choices, etc.

From there, you’ll be asked to choose a card to accompany your gift. Facebook offers over a dozen choices or card types, including Holidays, Wedding, Thank You, Congrats, Birthday, and Just Because.

All that’s left to do is review your order and enter your payment details. On the review screen, you can choose whether or not to make your purchase public and share it on the recipient’s Timeline. This is also where you’ll first get to see your total price including shipping (which can be pretty significant if you give a gift that needs special shipping, like ice cream).

Of course, if anything goes wrong with the transaction, you can consult the Facebook Gifts help page.

That’s it. Pretty simple, really (except maybe not on the wallet).

“Starting today, Facebook Gifts is available to everyone in the U.S. With Gifts, you can instantly send your friends real gifts through Facebook. Select a gift from categories like Food & Drink, Home & Kitchen, Baby & Kids, and now Wine,” says Facebook.

Facebook Gifts had been in a soft launch period since the new initiative was announced back in late September. Throughout that period, Facebook slowly made Gifts available to more and more users – as they continued to add new retail partners and features.

With the U.S. launch today, users can give gifts from over 100 retail partners, as well as virtual subscriptions from Hulu, Pandora, Rdio, and more. Users can also give gifts to charity in their friends’ names, and the company just recently added iTunes gift cards to the product.

If you want to give a friend a gift from desktop or mobile, simply head to their Timeline and you’ll find the option next to the “post” and “photo” options. Facebook has also included the gift box logo inside birthday reminders (on both desktop and mobile) – for obvious reasons.

Today, Facebook is announcing another big-time partner: Apple’s iTunes. Starting today, you can give digital iTunes gift cards to your friends through the Facebook Gifts platform.

When you give an iTunes Gift, you’ll have to ability to recommend albums, artists, tracks, movies, or anything else available on iTunes. The iTunes Gifts come in denominations of $10, $15, $25, and $50.

Facebook also recently announced the ability to give gifts of charity through the platform.

Facebook has been slowly rolling Gifts out to users. With every Gifts-related announcement, Facebook has said that it is continuing to roll out to more users. Along with the iTunes partnership announcement, Facebook seems to have rolled Gifts out to more users today. I just got the ability to give a gift on my personal profile. You can give a gift by heading to the official Gifts page or by selecting the Gifts icon on users’ Timelines:

Facebook tells me that Gifts is already available to tens of million of U.S. users, and that they will continue the rollout over the coming weeks.

According to Facebook, users will be able to send a variety of types of gifts through the platform. Of course, there are gadgets, clothes, cosmetics, books, and food to give. Facebook says that some new partners include babyGap, Fab, Brookstone, Dean & Deluca,L’Occitane, Lindt, ProFlowers, Random House, Inc. and NARS Cosmetics. But users will also be able to gift media to their friends through subscriptions to Hulu Plus, Pandora, Rdio, and more.

For the adults in your life, you’ll also be able to give wine from Robert Mondavi and Chandon via Facebook.

Facebook says that even more retail partners will be announced over the coming weeks.

So, Facebook Gifts is rounding out its partners and growing more robust by the second. The next big question is of course, when? When will the majority of Facebook users have access to the Gifts platform? Up until now, it’s only been available to a small number of users. Facebook says that they will continue to roll it out to users over the coming weeks.

When Gifts finally comes to your profile, you can expect every user’s profile to sport a Gifts button, making it easy to send gifts with a single click. This button will exist on both desktop and mobile. You can also expect some sort of recommendation engine, which suggests gifts based on what’s popular among users of a similar demographic set as the recipient.

Facebook recently updated their iOS app to provide Gifts support. They also announced the ability for users to give gifts to charity in their friends’ names through the Gifts platform. Facebook is getting into this game at the right time, as the holiday season is just getting underway. Because of that, we expect that most users will have access to Gifts sooner rather than later.

Now, it’s officially been rescheduled.

The Facebook Gifts event will now take place on Thursday, November 15th at 7:30 pm ET. It’s still being held at FAO Schwartz on Fifth Avenue.

It’s unclear exactly what Facebook will detail at the event, but it’s expected that it will have something to do with additional retail partners for the Gifts initiative. Facebook Gifts’ soft launch included over 100 partners.

Although they didn’t end up having the Gifts event on November 1st, Facebook did announce some news about the feature on that day. Users can now make donations to charity using Facebook Gifts. It works the same way as giving a physical gift, and either the giver or the receiver can designate which of 11 charities will benefit from the donation.

Facebook also recently updated their iOS app to provide Gifts support.

Facebook Gifts is currently only available in the U.S., and only for a small set of users. Facebook says that they will have it rolled out to more users “soon.”

[Image via CNET]