Lightbank-Backed Social Gifting Platform Boomerang Expands To 3 New Cities, Launches Mobile Apps

Boomerang, the Facebook-based gifting service that launched its beta test in Chicago earlier this year, just announced that it is now expanding beyond its initial market and making its first move toward launching its nationwide operations. Starting today, Boomerang users in three new cities, New York, Austin and Indianapolis, can now send each other real-world gifts like cupcakes, drinks, massages.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/16/lightbank-backed-gifting-platform-boomerang-expands-to-3-new-cities-launches-mobile-apps/

This Holiday, Will Giving Get Social?

It’s beginning to look a lot like a social Christmas, everywhere we go. The big news, of course, continues to be Facebook, which said last week that it is rolling Facebook Gifts out across the U.S., offering everything from cupcakes to gift cards. (It’s the expansion of gifting app Karma, which it acquired last spring and, investors hope, an important revenue stream. Facebook will get an undisclosed percentage of everything it sells.) 

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/184428/this-holiday-will-giving-get-social.html

Create personalized Christmas cards on your smartphone

Tis’ the season to start sending your family, friends, old bosses, and coworkers holiday greeting cards. The process just got a lot simpler with an new app called Sincerely Ink, which lets you create cards on your smartphone and then sends physical cards via snail mail.

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/11/30/create-personalized-christmas-cards-on-your-smartphone-sent-in-mail/

iTunes 11 surprise: Apple sneaks in a gift card scanner

The new feature lets Mac users scan gift cards and other promotional codes into iTunes using a built-in camera instead of typing them in.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57556241-37/itunes-11-surprise-apple-sneaks-in-a-gift-card-scanner/

Watch Out Ecommerce, Facebook Turns Karma Acquisition Into ‘Gifts’

Facebook today launches Facebook Gifts to make ecommerce more convenient. It turns user data into suggestions for gifts to buy right from where you spend your time — and without a friend’s address. Facebook earns a percentage of sales when you use it to buy friends physical products or digital gift cards for their birthdays, weddings, or other special occasions.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/27/facebook-gifts/

Happy Holidays from First Round Capital

http://gifts.firstround.com/

Giftly Looks to Disrupt Traditional Gift Card Market

When CEO Tim Bentley founded Giftly, a site that allows users to give gift certificates through recipients’ credit cards, he realized business would be heavily seasonal. The three big holidays for gift cards are Christmas, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day, and almost 50 percent of the market is sold in the fourth quarter of the year.

http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2012/11/26/giftly-looks-to-disrupt-traditional-gift-card-market/