Gift card services for mobile devices

A computer program product, tangibly embodied in a computer-readable storage medium, the computer program product being operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

• receiving data characterizing a request to activate a plastic gift card comprising an account number;
• activating the plastic gift card, the activating comprising associating the account number with an account of a wireless gift card service, the wireless gift card service to provide services comprising management of an account associated with the account number through a web site;
• associating the account with a mobile device;
• determining a messaging service with a largest message length supported by the mobile device;
• and
• generating a message according to the determined messaging service to the mobile device providing notification of the activation.

A computer program product, tangibly embodied in a computer-readable storage medium, the computer program product being operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

• receiving user-generated data characterizing a request to provide a personalized wireless gift card service to an intended recipient, the user-generated data specifying a plurality of features to be included in the personalized wireless gift card service, the wireless gift card service to be provided by a wireless gift card server in communication with a physical gift card account server, the physical gift card account server storing balances for wireless gift cards, the wireless gift card server to provide services comprising enabling purchase of wireless gift cards through a web site;
• determining whether a mobile device associated with the intended recipient supports only SMS or whether the mobile device supports both SMS and MMS;
• and
• identifying, if the mobile device only supports SMS, which of the specified features cannot be included in the personalized wireless gift service and generating an SMS for the intended recipient comprising a wireless gift card of a starting balance with less than all of the specified features;
• or
• generating an MMS for the intended recipient comprising a wireless gift card of a starting balance personalized with all of the specified features.

A computer program product, tangibly embodied in a computer-readable storage medium, the computer program product being operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

• receiving data characterizing a request to provide a wireless gift card service to an intended recipient, the wireless gift card service to be provided by a wireless gift card server in communication with a physical gift card account server, the physical gift card account server storing balances for wireless gift cards, the wireless gift card server to provide services comprising enabling purchase of wireless gift cards through a web site;
• querying, by the wireless gift card server, a carrier of an SMS/MMS network for a feature set of the mobile device based on the phone number for the mobile device;
• performing, by the carrier network, a look up of a phone data database to determine which features are supported by the mobile device and returning a set of features to the wireless gift card server, the phone data database including data relating phone numbers to phone models and phone features;
• and
• generating and initiating transmission of a message to the mobile device for the intended recipient comprising a wireless gift card according to the set of features returned to the wireless gift card server by the carrier network.