Facebook has announced the end of its virtual gift shop, revealing that it will close for business next month.
The social-network giant has made a pretty penny from its virtual gifts (around $100 million since its launch in 2007) so it is interesting that it has decided to get rid of the service so that it can "focus instead on improving other products".
This doesn't mean that you won't see virtual gifts from appearing on the site anymore, as Facebook is allowing third-party applications to continue offering their services.
Improving and enhancing
"Closing the Gift Shop may disappoint many of the people who have given millions of gifts, but we made the decision after careful thought about where we need to focus our product development efforts," explains Facebook in a blog.
"We'll be able to focus more on improving and enhancing products and features that people use every day, such as Photos, News Feed, Inbox, games, comments, the 'Like' button and the Wall."
Those who are worried that the gifts they have already accrued will disappear, don't worry as Facebook has confirmed that they will be staying put on your wall.
For those who are fed up of seeing virtual gift pop-ups appearing in their newsfeed, then Facebook's cutting of this service may well be the biggest gift of all.
