Introducing GIF search on Twitter • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing GIF search on Twitter

#61

Post by Kiro » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 8:36 PM UTC

_jomo wrote: post #28

minimaxir wrote: post #2

It's funny that Twitter is doing a GIF search because Twitter encodes GIFs as MP4s for bandwidth/performance reasons: http://blog.embed.ly/post/89265229166/what-twitter-isnt-tell... I am assuming from this announcement that Giphy's Series C pitch deck was just one slide saying "we have a partnership with Twitter; give us money."

When will they add support for long GIFs with sound? /s There's a weird trend of taking full HD YouTube videos, converting them to soundless, bad quality GIFs and then upload them to twitter or imgur, where they're then encoded back to video. Quite often this goes without source to the original. I assume that people doing this just want to show the important content on the respective platform rather than sending a li…

When I'm on imgur I don't want to see stuff that requires me to turn off my music. I know the video I see there are tailored for soundless usage.

Re: Introducing GIF search on Twitter

#62

Post by forrestthewoods » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 8:42 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #18

> “GIPHY delivers real-time GIFs as they happen, helping to power Twitter’s live commentary and conversation,” says Alex Chung, founder and CEO of GIPHY. Someone built a 30+ person company around animated GIFs. And they say there isn't a bubble...

Someone is making money off a series of moving images? My god! Who woulda thunk such a thing possible?

Re: Introducing GIF search on Twitter

#63

Post by sktrdie » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 8:45 PM UTC

stirner wrote: post #60

It's sad to see such an important tech company reinforce the use of an outdated pseudo-video format like GIF.

They actually transform the GIF and serve a loop of the mp4 video.

Re: Introducing GIF search on Twitter

#64

Post by ljk » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 9:00 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #54

georgehotelling wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was pretty much how YouTube started. Content ID wasn't part of their MVP.

Content ID was added because of the legal issues YouTube faced.

why are there no legal issues with giphy.com?

Re: Introducing GIF search on Twitter

#65

Post by roymurdock » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 9:16 PM UTC

ljk wrote: post #64

minimaxir wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Content ID was added because of the legal issues YouTube faced.

why are there no legal issues with giphy.com?

Because they're not making enough money for anyone to care yet.

Re: Introducing GIF search on Twitter

#66

Post by ACow_Adonis » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 9:16 PM UTC

ChristianBundy wrote: post #56

theOnliest wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.xkcd.com/1601/

Playing the curmudgeonly "kids these days" character is a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it.

Its also a beautiful thought terminating cliche that, whether designed to or not, shuts down introspection into a current society/time.

I get it, Socrates complained about the youth of today, that doesn't mean that there aren't societies that really need someone to point out the failings of the current zeitgeist, or that we aren't creating a culture based around consumerist banalities.

Societies before us didn't have mass-market advertising, industrialisation, instant communication devices, etc. Pointing out the inanity of our tech scene and commercial activities, is i think, not only accurate in its assessment, but I think a much needed cultural critique...

Re: Introducing GIF search on Twitter

#67

Post by vskarine » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 9:17 PM UTC

Interestingly, Kik did this last year as alternative solution to custom stickers and emojis other messaging apps have. Looks like this trend is catching on with other services.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/16/chat-app-kiks-newest-featur...

Re: Introducing GIF search on Twitter

#68

Post by api » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 9:53 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #46

Tenhundfeld wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess your critique is that Giphy doesn't have a clear, announced monetization strategy? That sounds fair. I haven't done any research on the company, but that seemed vague in their recent funding announcement/valuation. However, I think it's fair to say that Giphy has created something people want to use. Anecdotally, their Slack integration is very popular in the channels I frequent. Maybe the lack of public mone…

What makes this indicative of a bubble is the combination of: a. Business centered around an utterly frivolous endeavor b. Seemingly far more employees than necessary to support (a) c. Many millions of dollars raised in the pursuit of (a) and (b) You're absolutely correct that people want to use it. But they sure as hell aren't gonna pay directly for it or put up with ads. This is not a business made to last. I know…

Your (b) is a big one in my mind. The core of giphy could be run by one person. There's probably enough monetization potential here for a good healthy lifestyle business for 1-3 people.

Re: Introducing GIF search on Twitter

#69

Post by alwaysAttending » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 10:09 PM UTC

frik wrote: post #39

xienze wrote: post #18

> “GIPHY delivers real-time GIFs as they happen, helping to power Twitter’s live commentary and conversation,” says Alex Chung, founder and CEO of GIPHY. Someone built a 30+ person company around animated GIFs. And they say there isn't a bubble...

I actually visited Giphy.com the very first time. Wow, such a crazy site. Very similar to many companies in the "F'd companies" book from 2000/01 era. "Giphy Closes $55M Series C at a $300M Post-Money Valuation" (on HN yesterday) Hmm.

It's a poor man's YTMND

Re: Introducing GIF search on Twitter

#70

Post by j_lev » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 10:14 PM UTC

Ironically the 4chan crowd who create most of the world's shareable GIF content are either banned from Twitter because a feminist got outraged or have left of their own volition.