Facebook Suggests Gifts for Your Baby-Having Friends, Even Inside Statuses That Aren’t Baby-Related

We’re learning more and more about how Facebook plans to promote their new Gifts program. Last week, we saw that Facebook was beginning to suggest that you give gifts when friends post celebrato...
Facebook Suggests Gifts for Your Baby-Having Friends, Even Inside Statuses That Aren’t Baby-Related
Written by Josh Wolford
  • We’re learning more and more about how Facebook plans to promote their new Gifts program. Last week, we saw that Facebook was beginning to suggest that you give gifts when friends post celebratory statuses.

    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.

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