Facebook Inc (FB) Gifts Platform Ramping Up for Holidays?

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has continued its pursuit of revenue, and it recently brought out a small roll-out of a Gifts platform, where users can send gifts to friends very simply, using a click to send an item from selected retailers. Now it appears that Facebook is ready to roll out the platform to a wider audience, as it announced a number of new retail partners which are joining the program.

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)  announced that its small Gifts platform was going to expand internationally and be available to millions more users over the coming weeks. The platform, which has included Pottery Barn among other retailers, is now including babyGap, Brookstone, Lindt, ProFlowers, Random House, plus gift subscriptions to media sites like Hulu Plus, Rdio, Pandora and others. Users will also be able to gift varieties of wine for the adult tastes. Gifts can also been given to charity in friends’ names.

Gifts will eventually appear on users’ profiles, including your friends, and the Gifts platform will be availble both on desktop and mobile devices – and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has updated its iOS app to provide support for the new platform. It’s possible that with the platform may come recommendations, where gift suggestions may be made according to what is popular among your friends or what is popular among a certain demographic.

While this could be a popular idea for Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), especially with the current holiday shopping season beginning to ramp up, perhaps the big question for Facebook may be how quickly it rolls out this feature to the greatest percentage of its 1 billion users for it to be an effective tool for the holidays. Certainly there may be investors like billionaire George Soros of Soros Fund Management who will be watching the results of this platform once we get through the holiday season. Would you “Gift” your friends on Facebook if you had the opportunity? Do you think this concept can have some viabiliy as a evenue stream for Facebook?