Facebook wants your money and your address.  No surprise there.  But they’ve found a sneaky way of getting you to give up both.  Those of you who remember the good old days, when Facebook was exclusive to people with ‘.edu’ email addresses, probably remember Facebook gifts.  But this time around there is actually a reason to get excited …because the gifts are real!

Facebook is set to launch a new service whereby users can send each other actual gifts in the mail.  It’s really a great option for those who use birthday and anniversary reminders on Facebook.  Without leaving your computer, you can put a gift in the mail for that special somebody.  And every time you send a gift, Facebook gets a cut based on the services of a newly acquired e-commerce app called Karma.

The beauty of this new gifting system is that it works seamlessly within Facebook to both increase the amount and quality of data Facebook can collect on individuals, and also generate a stream of income.  After Facebook’s much-anticipated IPO was such a disappointment earlier this year, investors are growing increasingly concerned about Facebook’s ability to generate revenue, and thus ROI.

Social networks always run into this one, basic but fundamental problem: how to monetize.  No company can remain in existence without cash on hand, and simply being “worth millions of dollars” does not mean a business has a successful model for generating revenue.   LinkedIn, Twitter, Myspace, Friendster, Foursquare, and a host of other social networks have all run into this roadblock, and many didn’t make it (or in the case of Myspace, are limping along).

Facebook is taking a page from Google’s book when it comes to the new gifts service.  Diversification is a solid strategy.  Google started out as a simple search engine, but now it’s difficult to think of any element of new media they are not involved in.  With more expansion into things like Facebook mobile ads, gifts, and other innovative ways of generating revenue from user data, Facebook might just become a good investment.  But they aren’t there yet.