#Facebook is closing its virtual gift shop

NOOOOO!!!

Don't leave ussssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Per Facebook's official blog:

The Facebook Gift Shop is closing on Aug. 1 as we focus instead on improving other products. As of that date, you will no longer be able to give new gifts from the Gift Shop.

The gifts you've already received on your Wall will remain visible, and you still will be able to view your sent and received gifts on your gifts page. People also can continue to use the many third-party applications on Facebook for giving and receiving gifts, such as Birthday Cards, Hallmark Social Calendar, Pieces of Flair and some e cards.

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.

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.

The end of the Gift Shop is a bittersweet moment for me personally. Back in early 2007, Will Chen and I launched virtual gifts on Facebook following a Hackathon project where we conceptualized gifts in an evening and worked on it in our spare time until we had a prototype that was ready to become our day job.

Along the way toward launching it on Valentine's Day, we suffered from exhausting all-night sessions, but used the very act of giving each other the beautiful gifts designed by Susan Kare to get us through it.

While the ability to give gifts will be gone, I am proud of the impact gifts have had on Facebook. Out of the Gift Shop's "gift credits" came the virtual currency, Facebook Credits, that now makes it easier for people to buy premium items across the many games and applications on Facebook.

So while we're returning one gift, we're replacing it with another, one that will be used to improve the experience of even more people on Facebook.

But who's going to send me little kisses good night, and other weird and wanky things that for the life of me serve no purpose except they make me look really really cool ...

SO.

NOT.

FAIR.