Some of Facebook's gifts

Facebook has  announced that its Gift Shop, which  allows users to send personalized items -drinks, birthday cakes, and pieces of flair –  to friends on the network will close on August 1, 010  to allow it to focus on improving other features.  Users will still be able to use third-party applications to send and receive greeting cards and other items.

“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,” wrote Jared Morgenstern, product manager for the company’s new games and credits team. “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.”