The Facebook Blog

For those who enjoy games on Facebook, we're launching new features to make it easier to find new games and play with friends.  

A new game ticker

Games are an important way we connect with people, from family game night, to playing console games with siblings, to card games with friends. More than 200 million people play games on Facebook every month because it's easy to get started and play with friends. We're focused on improving the quality of the experience for those who play games, as well as those who do not. Today, we're launching features to give you better control over the updates you see in your News Feed.

Previously, you've had the ability to hide an application story, or... block it completely. Now, we're putting changes in place so game stories only post to your feed if you're playing them. This means people who play games can post stories to their Wall without worrying about overwhelming their friends who aren't playing, and people who don't play games won't see irrelevant stories in their feed for which they have no context.

The Facebook Gift Shop is closing on Aug. 1 as we focus instead on improving other products. As of that date, you will no longer be able to give new gifts from the Gift Shop.

The gifts you've already received on your Wall will remain visible, and you still will be able to view your sent and received gifts on your gifts page. People also can continue to use the many third-party applications on Facebook for giving and receiving gifts, such as Birthday Cards, Hallmark Social Calendar, Pieces of Flair and someecards.

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.

Original gifts between Jared and Will.

We moved to credit-based pricing for the Facebook Gift Shop last October. Now we want to simplify the use of those credits by taking away a zero from gift prices. Beginning tonight, the majority of gifts will require 10 credits to give rather than 100.

To match this change, we are updating any outstanding credits you have by the same proportion. This only affects the way credits are calculated; you will still be able to buy the same amount of gifts as before.

When you visit the Gift Shop, you can view the number of credits in your account in the... upper-right corner. If the adjustment has been made, you'll see a note explaining the change as well as the updated prices for gifts.



You can continue to purchase credits, now priced at 10 credits for $1. We expect to offer more ways to use credits and gifts in the future, and already we have run tests where users can share credits between friends.

We want to make sure that even the smallest amount of credits is meaningful. Now by accumulating as little as 10 credits, you can buy a gift to add more significance to a friend's birthday, celebrate a special occasion or simply have fun.


Jared Morgenstern is a product manager for the Gift Shop.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we will be making lots of small changes to the site to make it simpler and easier to use. You might see some of these changes; others you might not even notice, like removing the word "Updated" from News Feed stories that have new information added to them.

We're making these changes so that you can focus on the most important information as you navigate the site—what's happening with your friends. With that in mind, we've focused on cleaning up existing functionality to ensure that the site remains simple... and easy to use.

One of the more visible changes is removing the Networks link that appeared in between the Friends and Inbox links on the top of the site. We notice the usage of all the pages that were accessed from this menu (including Network pages) was much lower than that of the links around it. This will free up space in the top menu as well as keep the focus on the links people use most often. From now on, you'll be able to get to your Network pages from your profile.



When we make more visible changes, they will be noted on our help pagesJared is a Product Manager at Facebook.

As of today, Facebook has fully rolled out our new Marketplace feature. You can use Marketplace to list what you have and what you want within your group of friends, networks, or other networks. Beyond its use for classified listings, you can use Marketplace to get a sense of everything available or desired within your networks.

Your listings in Marketplace can be anything—books and DVDs you don't need anymore, the dream job you are looking to land, or the special requirements it takes just to be your roommate—but one thing remains the same;... you have something to offer, and someone else is probably looking for that thing.

Starting today, Facebook will begin enabling users to give each other gifts, tiny tokens of appreciation, that live on your profile. In this collection of gifts on Facebook, all items are $1 each and the net proceeds for the month of February go to the breast cancer research charity, Komen for the Cure.



Gifts can be given privately or publicly. When you give a public gift, it goes in the recipient's Gift Box and the message goes on the recipient's Wall. When you give a private gift, it only goes into the recipient's Gift Box (where others will... see it but will not know who gave it). Try it out.



The gifts in this collection were designed by Susan Kare, the designer of the original icon set for the Macintosh computer in 1983. If you're reading this on a mac, look down at your space bar to the two keys that surround it. See that clover on the command key? Yup, that's hers. Her icon work is currently being sold at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) gift shop in New York.

How did we choose Komen for the Cure? Our users guided this decision. Breast Cancer Awareness is the largest cause related group on Facebook (and the second largest group on the site). Komen for the Cure's stated mission is to save lives and end breast cancer forever by empowering people, ensuring quality care for all and energizing science to find the cures. They have been doing this for 25 years.

Spread the love.

Jared Morgenstern is manager for this product, and wants to suggest chaining gifts for more complex innuendos...