The Idea: A facebook app where you can enter all of your gift certificates/cards, the store, the value on the card, and the expiration date. You will then get notified when the card is about to expire so you can make sure to use it. I still need to think of a way to tie it into the social aspect of Facebook of course.
I got this idea after having three $50+ gift certificates expire on me! There must be a way to get these things organized.
Remember, you can always improve the app later on... such as allowing users to trade coupons of equal value for other things! For example, I found a coupon on a carton of ice cream for a free ice cream at Friendly's... I was going to throw it away, until I read the odds and saw that users had a 1 in 20 chance of getting that coupon. That made me realize it must be valuable. Turns out that coupon is for a FREE $5.99 ice cream sundae. Do I really want to eat that much ice cream in one sitting?
Now, let's say you're in college, and have tons of roommates and friends, and you can easily swap gift cards around. Even with college students you don't know, just to make new friends. For a $6 movie ticket or something. So I don't have to eat that ice cream, BUT someone else can get the benefit of it.
I don't know. Let the users figure it out. Especially when you're 18 and 19 and shy, it makes it easy and fun (especially in nerdy majors) to do something like that to get conversation started.
Or let's say someone gets a $50 gift certificate to Abercrombie and Fitch, but they don't wear those clothes, or they wear Tall sizes, and that store doesn't carry anything. Should they throw it away? Why not trade it, like for a $50 used textbook.
Then, eventually you become cool within your college and also your professors give you good recommendations. It's also something that you can talk about 2 years from now when you're doing even cooler things.
Creating something is the best thing a person can contribute to society. The ONLY reason not to create something is if you have another immediate project where you can help even more people and more realistically, in which case you would create that other thing. Otherwise, creating wins. Just say to yourself that you will simply spend 2 days on it, and make it happen.
Of course, now I have gotten completely away from the original idea, but I'm just putting the idea out there.
Why debate what may happen 3rd or 4th generation when he needs to create something in the first place? He's excited about a simple idea, and that is what he should do. Why should he worry about what he may or may not (if he chooses to) do in addition to the original idea he's excited about? That's a bad trap to get into. Thinking that one needs to have everything planned out is why few people ever start or finish anything on their own initiative.
Does it solve a problem? Is it something you will use? Is it something you can be proud to show others (e.g., it's not porn)? Are you excited about it right now? Then, create it. If thousands of other people like it, great! If not, it will still save him $150 a year and give him something to talk about.
Not every idea has to be stretched out to the point it might take you 6 months to create (which translates to 1 year actual time.)
http://www.mass.gov/treasury/gift_cert.htm
But, a coupon, especially a $20 coupon that saves you money on something YOU want, can be just as good as a gift certificate--and would still be allowed to expire in a few months, even in Massachusetts. So, this idea is still useful for Massachusetts.
Then there are rebates, discounts...
How to make social trading for small items?
Apparently some cities in the US are devloping their own currency systems.
Personally, the only way I could see you spinning this into something "worth it" would be the ability to swap unwanted giftcards with friends...
good luck.