Only Good Things Will Follow: Facebook Acquires Gift-Giving App Karma
May 19, 2012
Hot on the heels of its debut on Wall Street, Facebook has announced that it has acquired the popular gift-giving app Karma. According to TechCrunch, the move is a "real product acquisition" and 16 employees of the startup are set to begin working at the social networking giant.
Released just five months ago and available for free in the App Store, Karma is an iPhone app that lets you send gifts to your friends and family even without knowing their address. The idea is to choose an item to gift from a diverse product catalog including bottles of wine and Netflix subscriptions, and let the recipient specify the shipping address. The recipient is duly notified of your forthcoming gift via SMS, email, or Facebook.
"We’re thrilled to announce that Karma has been acquired by Facebook," said Karma co-founders Lee Linden and Ben Lewis in a blog post. "The service that Karma provides will continue to operate in full force. By combining the incredible passion of our community with Facebook’s platform we can delight users in new and meaningful ways. As we say … only good things will follow."
Even before the acquisition, Karma is already well-integrated with Facebook. The app connects with the social network to search through your friends' walls for any events that might call for a thoughtful gift, such as birthdays, weddings, and job promotions. The app was also recently updated to include great gifts for Mother's Day and push notifications for important events.
Karma joins the ubiquitous photo sharing app Instagram and the ambient location-based app Glancee in Facebook's list of recent purchases. What next?
Source: TechCrunch