In the fast paced world of internet, no one has the time to read what you have to say. Anything that you cannot express in seconds is useless, and so is anything that is not video because honestly who wants to look at still pictures? Thus, GIFs have become the most hip form of communication, and rightly so. The enormous nature of the medium has led to Facebook getting in on the action, like it does with every other market, and acquire Giphy, popular GIF sharing platform.
The news was first uncovered by Axios, which stated that the social media giant is going to acquire the gif platform in a $400 million takeover. The companies have been in talks even before the pandemic started, but it was only some time ago that the nature of the conversation became about acquisition than a partnership.
Later, Facebook made the announcement official through a blog post, saying,” GIPHY, a leader in visual expression and creation, is joining the Facebook company today as part of the Instagram team. GIPHY makes everyday conversations more entertaining, and so we plan to further integrate their GIF library into Instagram and our other apps so that people can find just the right way to express themselves”. Facebook however, hasn’t officially disclosed the acquisition amount.
Thus, the first platform to be renovated as a part of this deal will be Instagram, which announced the deal on its Instagram Comms twitter handly by saying, “Welcome to the family! For those wondering, GIPHY will continue to operate its library and relationships with content and API partners, so if you use GIPHY on other platforms, nothing will change.” Other platforms from the Facebook family, like WhatsApp, Messenger and the main Facebook app, also use Giphy’s API. Giphy will also retain its branding.
Facebook mentioned in its blog post that 50% of GIPHY’s traffic comes from the Facebook family of apps, and half of that comes from Instagram alone. Thus, the decision to select Instagram carrier of the new deal was well expected and had already been predicted by Axiom and others.
Others like Twitter, Pinterest, Slack and Reddit also use Giphy, and will continue to do so. “People will still be able to upload GIFs; developers and API partners will continue to have the same access to GIPHY’s APIs; and GIPHY’s creative community will still be able to create great content,” said Vishal Shah, VP of Product at Facebook, in the blog post.
Thus, everyone will still be able to use Giphy, except maybe those who pronounce them as “gifs” and not “jifs”, for they should not have gotten them in the first place.
