Gifts Are Now Facebook’s Default Birthday Interaction

I visited a friend’s facebook page on their birthday recently (typical, I know), but this time I noticed something interesting. Previously I when you visited a facebook profile you got a page opened to that person’s wall activity that looked something like this:

a typical facebook profile page

On this day however, because it was my friend’s birthday the profile page opened up automatically to the gift tab:

The gift submenu of the Wall tab on the facebook profile page

This experience was kind of jarring because (like everyone else) I was just expecting to write on the wall and move on with my facebook life. This time I had to figure out what had just happened, and how to get to the wall to do what I had intended. It was an unexpected experience, but I can see how this change it makes sense for facebook, because virtual economies make money, and facebook is no exception.