Gifting enabled by integration of commerce and social networks

A method of providing a service for automatically generating and executing an e-commerce gift offer for a social network contact as a function of integrating social network data, the method comprising:

• integrating computer-readable program code into a computer system comprising a processing unit, a computer readable memory and a computer readable tangible storage medium, wherein the computer readable program code is embodied on the computer readable tangible storage medium and comprises instructions that, when executed by the processing unit via the computer readable memory, cause the processing unit to perform steps of:
• in response to direction by a first user via a graphical user interface input, engaging a web site offering goods or services for sale within a network computing environment;
• in response to the user selecting an item via the graphical user interface that is offered for sale by the engaged first web site, searching personal data associated with the first user that is acquired from a social network web site that is different from the engaged web site to determine an indication that at least one other, second user that is listed within the personal data acquired from the social network web site has an interest in acquiring the selected item;
• in response to determining the indication that at least one second user has an interest in acquiring the selected item, selecting at least one of the second users as a recipient and presenting an offer to the first user to select the item for an additional gift purchase for the selected at least one second user as recipient;
• in response to the first user selecting the presented additional gift purchase for one of the second users, using the personal data acquired from the social network web site to automatically determine a geographic location of a current residence of the second user recipient associated with the first user selection, narrowing down a list of online retailers offering the item to a subset of the online retailers that each also provide delivery service to the determined geographic location of the current residence of the second user selected by the first user, and selecting one of the subset of the online retailers for execution of the additional gift purchase of the item for the second user selected as the recipient by the first user.

A system, comprising:

• a processing unit in communication with a computer readable memory and a tangible computer-readable storage medium;
• wherein the processing unit, when executing program instructions stored on the tangible computer-readable storage medium via the computer readable memory:
• in response to direction by a first user via a graphical user interface input, engages a web site offering goods or services for sale within a network computing environment;
• in response to the user selecting an item via the graphical user interface that is offered for sale by the engaged first web site, searches personal data associated with the first user that is acquired from a social network web site that is different from the engaged web site to determine an indication that at least one other, second user that is listed within the personal data acquired from the social network web site has an interest in acquiring the selected item;
• in response the determination that the indication that at least one second user has an interest in acquiring the selected item, selects at least one of the second users as a recipient and presents an offer to the first user to select the item for an additional gift purchase for the selected at least one second user as recipient;
• in response to the first user selecting the presented additional gift purchase for one of the second users, uses the personal data acquired from the social network web site to automatically determine a geographic location of a current residence of the second user recipient associated with the first user selection, narrows down a list of online retailers offering the item to a subset of the online retailers that each also provide delivery service to the determined geographic location of the current residence of the second user selected by the first user, and selects one of the subset of the online retailers for execution of the additional gift purchase of the item for the second user selected as the recipient by the first user.

A computer program product for automatically generating and executing an e-commerce gift offer for a social network contact as a function of integrating social network data, the computer program product comprising:

• a computer readable tangible storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising instructions that, when executed by a computer processing unit, cause the computer processing unit to:
• in response to direction by a first user via a graphical user interface input, engage a web site offering goods or services for sale within a network computing environment;
• in response to the user selecting an item via the graphical user interface that is offered for sale by the engaged first web site, search personal data associated with the first user that is acquired from a social network web site that is different from the engaged web site to determine an indication that at least one other, second user that is listed within the personal data acquired from the social network web site has an interest in acquiring the selected item;
• in response to determining the indication that at least one second user has an interest in acquiring the selected item, select at least one of the second users as a recipient and present an offer to the first user to select the item for an additional gift purchase for the selected at least one second user as recipient;
• in response to the first user selecting the presented additional gift purchase for one of the second users, use the personal data acquired from the social network web site to automatically determine a geographic location of a current residence of the second user recipient associated with the first user selection, narrow down a list of online retailers offering the item to a subset of the online retailers that each also provide delivery service to the determined geographic location of the current residence of the second user selected by the first user, and select one of the subset of the online retailers for execution of the additional gift purchase of the item for the second user selected as the recipient by the first user.