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Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

theguardian.com

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Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#161

Post by ch4s3 »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #155
lovich wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing stops you from starting a new service for any sort of content library. The moat is in the content creation/curation, and in this case that content is centered around gifs. If you want to get really reductive we could point towards any sort of content based business on the internet as merely moving files over http/https but I don’t think anyone would find it reasonable to compare Netflix and Kindle’s book libr…

> Nothing stops you from starting a new service for any sort of content library. Content licensing does. Try creating an alternative streaming platform that has the entire Netflix library and see how quickly you get shut down. Facebook can't sue you if you create a rival gif service. None of the value is in their "content". All the value is in the search and ui

> All the value is in the search and ui

I'm pretty sure that value is approximately $0.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#162

Post by somehnacct3757 »

camdat wrote: post #128
somehnacct3757 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think about it for more than 2 moments you will see that owning Giphy allows Facebook to see which chat apps you're using (via the api key for the app's Giphy integration) and who you're talking to on them (by attaching an id to each gif similar to how tracking pixels work in email.) Most chat clients automatically load images, triggering the tracker. This gives Facebook unprecedented visibility into the user…

Could you provide an example of a competitor app that integrates Giphy? It feels like a lot of people _think_ this is the explanation, but the chat apps I use defer gifs to the keyboard.

Discord has /giphy and Slack does as well, although Slack's is via addon. Slack considers this addon an Essential App which gives it top billing on their marketplace.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#165

Post by ch4s3 »

lovich wrote: post #153
ch4s3 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> considered table stakes for modern chat clients I'm not so sure about that. I rarely see anyone using them anymore and have read reports that usage is declining. Even if it is table stakes, nothing stops you from rendering gifs without gify integration.

Nothing stops you from starting a new service for any sort of content library. The moat is in the content creation/curation, and in this case that content is centered around gifs. If you want to get really reductive we could point towards any sort of content based business on the internet as merely moving files over http/https but I don’t think anyone would find it reasonable to compare Netflix and Kindle’s book libr…

Why would you even want to for gifs? The value seems super low compared to the effort. What value did gify even provide facebook? The data is probably next to worthless. Gifs in text chat seem like a fading fad, and are probably a bad user experience. The whole thing seems like a huge boondoggle, and the idea that it gives facebook any leverage anywhere is laughable.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#166

Post by lovich »

ch4s3 wrote: post #165
lovich wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing stops you from starting a new service for any sort of content library. The moat is in the content creation/curation, and in this case that content is centered around gifs. If you want to get really reductive we could point towards any sort of content based business on the internet as merely moving files over http/https but I don’t think anyone would find it reasonable to compare Netflix and Kindle’s book libr…

Why would you even want to for gifs? The value seems super low compared to the effort. What value did gify even provide facebook? The data is probably next to worthless. Gifs in text chat seem like a fading fad, and are probably a bad user experience. The whole thing seems like a huge boondoggle, and the idea that it gives facebook any leverage anywhere is laughable.

I’m going to point towards Facebook spending 600 million to buy giphy and the regulators deciding this gave too much monopoly power to the point of requiring Meta to sell the business, as self evident proof that it’s valuable.

I get that you, personally, don’t value it but large organizations apparently do

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#167

Post by Apocryphon »

ch4s3 wrote: post #152
Apocryphon wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Frankly it seems laughable that Facebook paid $660m for Gify in the first place. It's another vector for collecting user analytics.

I question the value there. Who cares that someone likes Seinfeld clips with George? Is that worth anything at all? You can get basically that data from Experian anyway without all of the hassle.

Maybe someone should have told Meta that when they bought Giphy!

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#168

Post by ch4s3 »

Apocryphon wrote: post #167
ch4s3 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I question the value there. Who cares that someone likes Seinfeld clips with George? Is that worth anything at all? You can get basically that data from Experian anyway without all of the hassle.

Maybe someone should have told Meta that when they bought Giphy!

I’m pretty sure the general tone here at the time could be summarized as “what they fuck are they thinking.”

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#169

Post by ch4s3 »

lovich wrote: post #166
ch4s3 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you even want to for gifs? The value seems super low compared to the effort. What value did gify even provide facebook? The data is probably next to worthless. Gifs in text chat seem like a fading fad, and are probably a bad user experience. The whole thing seems like a huge boondoggle, and the idea that it gives facebook any leverage anywhere is laughable.

I’m going to point towards Facebook spending 600 million to buy giphy and the regulators deciding this gave too much monopoly power to the point of requiring Meta to sell the business, as self evident proof that it’s valuable. I get that you, personally, don’t value it but large organizations apparently do

I don’t think that proves that either Facebook or UK regulators are rational actors. I’m also not aware of any earnings reports from Facebook point to any return on that investment. It also doesn’t seem like there have been many gify copycats.

[*edit] I'd also add that Facebook's share price dropped 15% the month the original deal was announced, and took two months to recover. It seems like the market agreed that it was a bad deal.

Re: Meta to sell Giphy after UK watchdog confirms ruling

#170

Post by lovich »

ch4s3 wrote: post #169
lovich wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m going to point towards Facebook spending 600 million to buy giphy and the regulators deciding this gave too much monopoly power to the point of requiring Meta to sell the business, as self evident proof that it’s valuable. I get that you, personally, don’t value it but large organizations apparently do

I don’t think that proves that either Facebook or UK regulators are rational actors. I’m also not aware of any earnings reports from Facebook point to any return on that investment. It also doesn’t seem like there have been many gify copycats. [*edit] I'd also add that Facebook's share price dropped 15% the month the original deal was announced, and took two months to recover. It seems like the market agreed that it…

This is kind getting tautological here when you’re saying that just because someone/some group values it doesn’t make it valuable, especially when we have two fairly large organizations involved.

I’d need your definition of what “valuable” is before we could have a useful conversation

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