The Facebook Economy Stimulus Package

Our current U.S. economy is going through some oddly turbulent times. And while much of this hype may be caused more by panic in the media than an actual crisis, the President and Congress are wasting no time in taking measures to make things better (too bad they don't do this for other pressing matters like Social Security and immigration reform... but that's neither here nor there). Their main plan to keep us out of a recession is to release an economic stimulus package, which is essentially a nice fat check returned to the American tax-payer. While this basically proves that the economy does better when the consumer has more money to spend (i.e. lower taxes), the stimulus package is a nice band-aid for a larger problem. Each tax-payer will probably get a couple hundred bucks to buy stuff with, or invest.

It seems to me as if Facebook is doing the same thing.

Today my brother sent me a gift on Facebook of an icon depicting a sack of money. It was tagged with a cute message celebrating the looming tax credit check we'll all be receiving sometime in June. Now normally, these "gifts" on Facebook cost $1 a piece. They don't really do anything, and they aren't exactly tangible; they're really just a way to tell someone you are thinking about them, without really just sending a message saying "I'm thinking about you." So I go to reply to my brother's thoughtful gift when I see that it is actually a free present that kids can give. It was sponsored by H&R Block, and was called the Fat Tax Refund present. Essentially it was encouraging users to give a free gift to one another, so that they would eventually spend more money giving other paid gifts on Facebook (because Facebook's revenue comes mainly from ads and $1 gift icons).

The Fat Tax Rebate gift was acting as a sort of stimulus package for the micro-economy of Facebook. While this may not have been intentional, it was certainly an entertaining thought on my commute home from work.