BREAKING: Facebook just announced that as of August 1st, users will no longer be able to send and receive virtual gifts (as well as some real gifts) on Facebook as Facebook looks to improve other products.

The gifts you've already received on your Wall will remain visible, and you still will 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 someecards.

You can still view existing gifts on the gifts page as they mentioned. The whole concept of virtual gifts was started  by Will Chen and Jared Morganstern after a Facebook Hackathon back in 2007, an all night event with a focus on conjuring up fresh new ideas. The issue was that it required you to use real money ($1 each, typically) to buy a virtual gift, which was really just an image to send to someone else's wall.

Out of that came Facebook Credits, which evolved into a currency system not only for gifts, but for Facebook games. Facebook Credits will remain as a currency system for games and other apps. But with that, Facebook's gift shop is no more.