The Internet's Unending Quest to Replace the Humble GIF

Good read and summary of why GIFs won't die (They Just Work) but really need to (They Are Too Damn Big).

I've been working on projects that want small, high quality animations as design elements on websites. Not featured video content -- just some useful, cool little animations (without sound).

Would love to use video for these.

Video file size is about 1/6th of GIF file size with smoother playback and better quality.

But to be an animated design element rather than a featured content item, the video needs to autoplay, it needs to play within the html page on all browsers/devices (yes, even iPhones...), it needs to not be cluttered up with status bars and control buttons.

Video is such a mess to work with on this level...

But GIF?

Just <img src="file.gif"> and it works everywhere.