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Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

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Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#491

Post by Hnrobert42 »

anbotero wrote: post #32
volkk wrote: post #6

Congrats to giphy I guess? But I'll be honest, any time I've ever used them as an extension in slack or anywhere, and tried to get relevant gifs, I got back some really bad results. I'll never fully understand why they're so successful short of just dominating the market through sheer popularity. I remember switching our team over to rightgif and the difference was astounding given the fact that giphy has millions up…

Finally! THIS, rightgif, is exactly what at least 90% of people wanting to use. But another commenter on this very thread mentioned they pretty much just did SEO. Arrgh, hate it.

Sorry, I don’t see the other comment. Are saying giphy or rightgif did SEO? You hate which?

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#492

Post by Hnrobert42 »

sabertoothed wrote: post #92
volkk wrote: post #6

Congrats to giphy I guess? But I'll be honest, any time I've ever used them as an extension in slack or anywhere, and tried to get relevant gifs, I got back some really bad results. I'll never fully understand why they're so successful short of just dominating the market through sheer popularity. I remember switching our team over to rightgif and the difference was astounding given the fact that giphy has millions up…

The most ridiculous thing, I find, is that giphy on Slack prints your search term as well, so others can read it. That completely takes the fun out of the *.gif for me.

That’s one of the main reasons I don’t use giphy on slack. I’m with you.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#493

Post by Hnrobert42 »

robbyking wrote: post #352
volkk wrote: post #6

Congrats to giphy I guess? But I'll be honest, any time I've ever used them as an extension in slack or anywhere, and tried to get relevant gifs, I got back some really bad results. I'll never fully understand why they're so successful short of just dominating the market through sheer popularity. I remember switching our team over to rightgif and the difference was astounding given the fact that giphy has millions up…

I had a recruiter from Giphy pursue me pretty hard, and all I could think was there's no way I'm going to go to a company that won't be around in a year.

That sucks. Don’t beat yourself up. If it was the right decision at the time, it still is the right decision.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#494

Post by dingaling »

ghaff wrote: post #317
qorrect wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey same here, and Heinlein was my favorite author for a very long time. That particular book just never really did it for me.

Stranger in a Stranger Land was probably more of particular time and place that a lot of Heinlein's works. Although it came out at in 1961--mostly predating the counterculture era in the US, its mainstream cross-over appeal was definitely tied in with the Summer of Love etc. later in the decade.

1968 would indeed be about the right time period as "I grok Spock" bumper stickers appeared around then too.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#495

Post by samkater »

rkuykendall-com wrote: post #278
txcwpalpha wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought part of the "charm" of Giphy in Slack is that does give you those somewhat silly or "not exactly what I was looking for but actually this is funnier" type of GIFs. The couple of times I have tried to use it to search for a very specific GIF (like searching for a specific clip from a movie) it hasn't really worked, but whenever I use it for more general stuff like "/giphy cardio sucks" or "/giphy h…

Running `/giphy cardio sucks` on my work slack (thankfully just to Slackbot) yields a very NSFW result: https://giphy.com/gifs/old-school-bj-oldschool-111XK1CCmGNwI... So... confirmed?

Very off topic, but scrolling through the link you posted was amusing, but one of giphy's entries was this: https://giphy.com/gifs/RwQYRsO7s9l6w

Which, I have to say, just made me feel a little sad and now I'm actually starting to consider how giphy's are made... David Finlayson is a world-class trombone player and to have his video reduced to those tags (and associated with that context) was startling. The original video is here, in case anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soDn2puEuL8

Did somebody edit the video to create that gif, or could that have been machine generated? Are human-made gifs actually a source for image tagging with context???

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#496

Post by ivanstame »

paxys wrote: post #319
ivanstame wrote: post #163

Facebook and others should be put on hold for buying companies for a while...

Why on earth would they do that? There's practically a fire sale of startups unable to raise more cash.

Startup business models should not be to be sold...but to make money and be useful. And I am saying this because those companies are becoming too big and too powerful.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#497

Post by rswail »

chrisstanchak wrote: post #442
ChuckMcM wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory on why they were successful is that they made it possible for "anyone" to quickly respond with a gif response. Responding that way had become "cool" but it was difficult or impossible for people who didn't hoard a stash of gifs. This sort of solution "Make it easy for the rest of us" is a tried and true winner of traction for products.

Great summary! A blog post condensed into a perfect comment.

tapsheadbecausesmart.jpg

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#500

Post by anigbrowl »

ghaff wrote: post #188
teddyh wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Grok” is actually a cultural reference; it is a made-up word from a very famous science fiction book. When people use it, it looks the same to me like if they were using “Live long and prosper” in casual conversation.

I think one difference with "grok" is that, the way it's normally used, there really isn't IMO a perfect English replacement. To me at least, it implies a deeper and broader internalizing of something than saying "I understand it" or "I get it" necessarily implies.

It really doesn't. It's just a social signaling mechanism meant to give you the feeling of being cool for knowing about it. Every subculture does this, mostly unconsciously. Heinlein was really good at social dynamics and gave his (mostly young) readers the feeling of being initiated into a social elite. His pal L ron hubbard took the same knowledge in a different direction and created Scientology.
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