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It's not universally supported, but there is an animated png format: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APNG

As noted in that Wikipedia page, there is also the MNG format (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-image_Network_Graphics). Unfortunately it's over 10 years old and there is still little browser support.

Practically speaking, it is not supported enough to be any useful.

I'm still hoping for the rise of <video> tag based "gifs". Better compression, sound as an option. Vine provides a decent attempt at this.

Lack of sound may, in some circles, be considered a feature.

Yes, yes, very true.

WebP also supports animations, don't know how that compares to GIF though.