Facebook gifts gone mad

[Azzer]

I had a quick glance at Facebook gifts today to see what free gifts there were, and noticed that one has appeared for $50, and one for $500.

Now, these gifts are just a small square graphic, which when "gifted" to someone, appears on their Facebook page as a small graphic in a section listed "Gifts". So all you are paying for is the right to have a small square graphic listed on the profile page of whoever you give the "gift" to. You get free gifts randomly, but a big bunch of gifts cost 100 "credits" - 100 credits = $1 USD. A single dollar is acceptable I guess for anyone that wants to pay to "give" a square graphic to somebody.

But who the hell is going to spend $50, or even $500, to give the ability to display a small square graphic on their profile page that will only be shunted down & disappear in the future as they receive more gifts!?

Also the $500 one has a "Limited availability" of 15,000. So they really expect to make $7,500,000 on this one alone - that's seven and a half million dollars - from people forking out $500 a pop to "give" a square graphic to their Facebook friends!?

Madness!

Anyway, I grabbed a screeny to share the madness - remember, 100 credits = $1USD.

I think Facebook has lost the plot :P

[Dark_Angel]

omfgz

That's sick!

Someone will though, don't you just know it :P

[Mattheus]

I agree, it is ridiculous. However, for Facebook it costs next to nothing to implement - like you said, it's just a small graphic. Meaning even if one person out there buys it, they profit. If no-one buys it, then they haven't really lost anything. Facebook is so ridiculously popular these days there's bound to be a few members out there with more money then brains. You never know!

In a way it's similar to the people that clog the worlds email inboxes with spam. It costs pretty much nothing for them to send out millions upon millions of emails. Meaning even if one person out of a million was gullible enough to actually read their email and whip their old credit card, then they profit.

[saint1d]

Yeah I saw the same thing this morning, thought I'd send one to my wife with it being valentines and all, then I saw they actually charge for it. Insane.

[pinpower]

Mentalists...they deserve to be poor and have no money.
x

[Satureum]

I found one free one, so I sent it. lmao

[Tim]

People are stupid enough to pay for it.

Look at the iPhone's I Am Rich (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/08/iphone-i-am-ric.html) application for example; an app which simply showed a red ruby on the display and costing $1000 was purchased by eight people before being pulled by Apple.

[Alcibiades]

It's their own money to waste; if they want to waste it on facebook apps or iphone apps, then so be it; better than cocaine or strippers.

There are a lot of more harmful, far more stupid methods of wasting money than this.

Then again, there are far *better* ways to waste money but that's a side point i suppose.

[Garrett]

it be time to code apps and gifts for facebook and apple. screw a real job