It’s been quite the busy day for Facebook. You may have heard: the company went public. They also acquired Karma, which is described as a social and mobile gifting service.
The way Karma works, is: you send a gift, with a card, and Karma will notify your friend via text messager, email or Facebook. They can accept the gift as is or swap it for something else, or donate the value of it to charity. They enter their address, and Karma sends the gift.
The company was founded in 2011.
It’s going to be interesting to see how Facebook uses this. It could be a pretty interesting layer to Facebook as an ecommerce platform.
Facebook released the following statement:
“We’ve been really impressed with the Karma team and all they accomplished in such a short time. This acquisition combines Karma’s passion and innovative mobile app with Facebook’s platform to help people connect and share in new and meaningful ways.”
A post from the Karma team on the Karma blog says, “Over the last year, we’ve built a new e-commerce platform from the ground up. We’ve been honored to partner with amazing brands to create a curated catalog of products. We made those products instantly giftable in a brand new way. And we harnessed the power of Facebook’s social network to ensure you never miss a chance to show someone you care. The phenomenal response and feedback we’ve heard from customers has more than exceeded our expectations. And we’re just getting started — today we take social gifting to the next level.”
“We’re thrilled to announce that Karma has been acquired by Facebook,” the post continues. “The service that Karma provides will continue to operate in full force. By combining the incredible passion of our community with Facebook’s platform we can delight users in new and meaningful ways. As we say … only good things will follow.”
No word so far on the terms of the deal.