Introducing GIF search on Twitter
blog.twitter.com
blog.twitter.com
Someone built a 30+ person company around animated GIFs. And they say there isn't a bubble...
That sounds fair. I haven't done any research on the company, but that seemed vague in their recent funding announcement/valuation.
However, I think it's fair to say that Giphy has created something people want to use. Anecdotally, their Slack integration is very popular in the channels I frequent. Maybe the lack of public monetization plan means bubble to you, but it seems the business at least has some value. I don't know if they'll be able to turn that value into revenue, but it seems plausible to me.
I'm not really arguing against your opinion. I'm just trying to get clarity on exactly why you think Giphy is indicative of a bubble. Searching for funny gifs may seem frivolous, but it's something people value. If Giphy can capitalize on that value without losing users / destroying the brand, it seems like a reasonable foundation for a business.
a. Business centered around an utterly frivolous endeavor
b. Seemingly far more employees than necessary to support (a)
c. Many millions of dollars raised in the pursuit of (a) and (b)
You're absolutely correct that people want to use it. But they sure as hell aren't gonna pay directly for it or put up with ads. This is not a business made to last. I know it, you know it, we all know it. Yet there are people out there willing to toss $55M into this folly.
However, I agree that people wouldn't pay for it or put up with ads. As a casual Giphy user, I certainly wouldn't pay for it, and to your point, I wouldn't invest my own money in Giphy.
Anyway, thanks for spelling out your reasoning. Cheers.
Users always end up having value because of ads. People always pay for that.
Granted, this is not a "search engine" type of use case, but the actual existence of some gifs, and the tags applied, force a degree of compromise.
If they cut that out, they are probably fine.
It's like saying that Pinterest is a photo album. Or that Twitter is just a blog engine with 140 characters. Completely correct. Completely missing the point.
Plenty of 30+ person magazines or topic you've never heard of (Or there used to be - now they are 5 person websites).
Its one my main sources of entertainment( imgur). There is an explosion of information/media on the internet and we need new formats, presentation to reign that in and make it palatable. I don't think its as stupid as you are making it out to be. There is huge potential in this space.
I am assuming from this announcement that Giphy's Series C pitch deck was just one slide saying "we have a partnership with Twitter; give us money."
By the way, Tumblr had this feature for ages: even the icon is completely identical. [1]
There's a weird trend of taking full HD YouTube videos, converting them to soundless, bad quality GIFs and then upload them to twitter or imgur, where they're then encoded back to video. Quite often this goes without source to the original. I assume that people doing this just want to show the important content on the respective platform rather than sending a link (although twitter and reddit embed YouTube videos). Or is there another reason?
Fun to note is the gifs of entire movies in kilopixel resolution.
How a court would rule isn't clear.
*assuming they are copying a clip from a movie or show. Ripping off someone's original gif would turn this factor against them since they copy the whole thing.
I get it, Socrates complained about the youth of today, that doesn't mean that there aren't societies that really need someone to point out the failings of the current zeitgeist, or that we aren't creating a culture based around consumerist banalities.
Societies before us didn't have mass-market advertising, industrialisation, instant communication devices, etc. Pointing out the inanity of our tech scene and commercial activities, is i think, not only accurate in its assessment, but I think a much needed cultural critique...
But aside from the seriousness of this feature, I think there's something crucial here - and it's where emojiis were pointing at - its easier to tell a story with a picture, and pictures can cross the language barrier. I expect there to be more and more reaction images / gifs across Twitter, Facebook, even on hacker news on day. I bet that in 2 years either HN will have animated gifs, or it will be less busy and people will be somewhere else where there are some.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/16/chat-app-kiks-newest-featur...
That is not a snarky response.
I really prefer gifs to all these goofy icons and odd emoji (still use thumbs up etc, just not the poop and other odd ones).
I use Line App for chat with a group for a game I play, and they all love those stickers and emojis. Most of the time I don't even register what it is, and move on - gifs are a bit more eye catching and usually more poignant.
:badger badger badger badger:
From a technology perspective, dealing in GIF at this obnoxious volume will be needlessly expensive and difficult to scale.
Perhaps GIPHY has convinced VCs that they are a new medium within the 'storytelling' trend that many brands are latching on to. But I don't see GIPHY being able to scale this product successfully to the point where they can start monetizing, without having to abandon their antiquated file format.