Remember Facebook Gifts, the social network's service that let you buy and send gifts to your friends? Originally called "Gift Shop" and focusing on virtual goods, it was killed off in 2010. Facebook then launched a physical gift shop in September 2012 following the company's acquisition of gift-giving app Karma.
Now, Facebook Gifts will be shut down once again, on August 12, according to a report by re/code, confirmed by a company spokesperson.
It was obvious that Gifts wasn't working as imagined -- in August 2013, Facebook partially shut it down, removing the ability to purchase physical goods and focusing on gift cards. And although it's now clear that even that part of the service did not fare well with users, Facebook still isn't giving up on the idea completely.
“We’ll be using everything we learned from Gifts to explore new ways to help businesses and developers drive sales on the Web, on mobile and directly on Facebook,” Facebook spokeswoman Tera Randall said in a statement.
According to re/code's report, Karma founder Lee Linden and the rest of the Gifts team will remain with Facebook and work on other commerce-related projects.
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