On the 30th birthday of GIFs, Facebook rolls out a nice surprise
One of the more popular image formats – the Graphical Interface Format (GIF) – celebrated its 30th birthday on June 15, 2017, and Facebook took it upon itself to make it a grand affair.
The format which for years was not supported on the social media platform, was today officially rolled out as a medium of replying to comments for users of the social media platform from across the globe.
In a blog post, it said, "We know people love communicating with GIFs on Messenger, and we’re also making it easier to use GIFs on Facebook. Today we’re introducing the ability to add GIFs in comments for all people on Facebook globally...We’re also celebrating the 30th anniversary the best way we know how — a GIF party with some of your favorite stars."
The new update will add a small GIF icon placed right next to the emoji icon inside the comment box. Clicking on the GIF icon reveals a small box that opens up a collection of trending GIFs that can be used to reply to comments.
The GIFs have been created by Facebook in collaboration with Giphy and Giphy Studios. For now, the created set of GIFs include internet stars DNCE, Logan Paul, Amanda Cerny, Dreezy, Patrick Starr, Violet Benson, Wuz Good, Brandi Marie and Landon Moss.
Facebook messenger has supported GIFs for a while now. In the blog post, the company revealed excatly how popular GIFs have been on their platform. The social media giant said that messenger users sent nearly 13 billion GIFs over the past one year – triple the number it recorded last year.
Although users have had the option of using GIFs in Facebook too by copy-pasting external links, this move of adding native functionality to the platform is sure to make many happy.