Facebook Inc. is expanding the number of retailers for its gift-
giving feature that lets users buy and send items without leaving
the website, part of the company's efforts to add new revenue.
The new partners include Brookstone Inc., Dean & Deluca Inc. and
Fab.com Inc., Facebook said at a news conference in New York. "Tens
of millions" of users can now access products via the gifting
service, which was announced in September with retailers such as
Starbucks Corp. and 1-800- Flowers.com Inc.
Menlo Park, California-based Facebook is trying to generate more
revenue from the world's most popular social network, with more than
1 billion users. Through Thursday, shares in Facebook have declined
42 percent since its May initial public offering, partly on concern
over its rate of mobile advertising sales growth and competition
from rivals such as Google Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.
"There is nowhere people go more to share life's moments than
Facebook," said Lee Linden, product lead for Facebook Gifts and
founder of Karma, the gift-giving application Facebook acquired
earlier this year. "It's a huge milestone for the team, and
something we think people are very much going to enjoy."
The new feature lets users find and send gifts from a birthday
reminder or from a friend's profile.
