Facebook buys major GIF-making site Giphy for $400 MILLION but says the animated images will still be available on Twitter and other platforms
- The animated image sharing service is currently open to a range of platforms
- Facebook said they will invest in Giphy and that it will join the Instagram team
- Giphy’s library of animated images will still be available on Twitter and others
Social media giant Facebook has bought major GIF-making website Giphy in a deal thought to be worth $400 million (£330 million).
Giphy’s user-uploaded library of animated images is already integrated and used widely by Facebook’s family of social media apps including Instagram.
Facebook confirmed Giphy will now become part of the Instagram team and that the integration will make it easier for users to find the perfect gif and stickers for stories.
According to the social media company, 50 per cent of Giphy’s traffic already comes from Facebook’s platforms, with half of that from Instagram alone.
People can currently share Gifs from Giphy on Facebook rivals such as Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr and the company confirmed that will continue.
Giphy, which launched in 2013, is expected to keep its own branding despite being part of the Instagram product team.
‘More than one billion people use Instagram to communicate how they’re feeling and what they’re passionate about — we can’t wait to help those people become even more animated,’ said Giphy in a statement.
Facebook said it had been using the Giphy API for years across all of its platforms including Instagram, Facebook app, Messenger and WhatsApp to let people share animated images.
They plan to invest further in the technology and relationships with other content providers to boost the service offered by Giphy.
‘Both our services are big supporters of the creator and artist community, and that will continue,’ said Vishal Shah, Facebook’s vice president of product.
‘Together, we can make it easier for anyone to create and share their work with the world.’
GIFs and stickers give people meaningful and creative ways to express themselves, according to the Facebook team.
‘We see the positivity in how people use GIPHY in our products today, and we know that bringing the GIPHY team’s creativity and talent together with ours will only accelerate how people use visual communication to connect with each other.’
Facebook confirmed Giphy will now become part of the Instagram team and that the integration will make it easier for users to find the perfect gif and stickers for stories
Giphy said since it launched seven years ago several trillion gif images had been shared across multiple platforms from its library.
They say their mission is to ‘make the way you express yourself funnier, more exciting…and maybe just a little bit weirder.’
‘More than 1 billion people use Instagram to communicate how they’re feeling and what they’re passionate about — we can’t wait to help those people become even more animated,’ Giphy said in a blog post.
‘We’ve had a lot of fun teaming up with Instagram over the years; GIPHY’s Stickers were the perfect fit for layering on Instagram Stories, while our GIF search allowed everyone to capture that perfect emotion in Instagram’s DMs.
‘Based on the success of those collaborations (and many others) we know that there are exciting times ahead of us.’