Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#71

Post by nindalf » Fri, May 15, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

bottled_poe wrote: post #31

petercooper wrote: post #12

Instagram seemed expensive at $1bn in 2012 and ultimately turned out to be a very savvy buy, so I feel like I should trust Facebook on this one. I'm kinda surprised Imgur hasn't sold in a similar way yet, it seems to have slightly more sense of community than Giphy which is more broadly known as a search engine for GIFs.

Yikes. Feels like my privacy is leaking again. Time to find some alternative.

How many times are you going to make the same comment on this thread? This is a pretty good angle for farming karma on HN but you have to be more subtle about it.

Other comment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23192779

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#72

Post by yreg » Fri, May 15, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

scared2 wrote: post #30

These kinds of acquisitions intrigue me. what is valuation crieteria? from technical and innovation perspective, what part of it is worth millions?

Another commenter pointed out that Giphy is integrated into many products and buying Giphy is a way to get metrics about those products.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#73

Post by Sevaris » Fri, May 15, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

And the inexorable march towards tech companies owning everything continues. I wish anti-trust law wasn't such a joke across the globe.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#74

Post by jcroll » Fri, May 15, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

cecilpl wrote: post #58

Every time Facebook is buying something I feel sad and imagine Facebook like the black plague that will swallow that normal organism.

The owners of giphy don't feel the same pangs I'm sure

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#75

Post by FalconSensei » Fri, May 15, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

rofws wrote: post #47

The only time I use giphy is through google keyboard (yes, I send a lot of memes). I guess google will have to pay them now? Or will keyboard stop supporting giphy?

IMHO they will migrate to something else

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#76

Post by scoot_718 » Fri, May 15, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

This is the first (and I'm guessing last) I've ever heard of giphy.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#77

Post by FalconSensei » Fri, May 15, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

bottled_poe wrote: post #31

petercooper wrote: post #12

Instagram seemed expensive at $1bn in 2012 and ultimately turned out to be a very savvy buy, so I feel like I should trust Facebook on this one. I'm kinda surprised Imgur hasn't sold in a similar way yet, it seems to have slightly more sense of community than Giphy which is more broadly known as a search engine for GIFs.

Yikes. Feels like my privacy is leaking again. Time to find some alternative.

if you were already using giphy, it's not like you had your privacy before the acquisition...

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#78

Post by askafriend » Fri, May 15, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #34

tombert wrote: post #19

Damnit, I turned down a follow-up interview with Giphy years ago since I didn't think they were sustainable and I had been burned by startups in the past. Shows how much business sense I have!

It happens. I turned down a job at Shazam very early on because I couldn't understand what on earth their business model was. They were recently acquired by Apple for (coincidentally) $400m. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shazam_(application) The actual start up I founded instead fizzled into administration.

Right but Shazam was founded in 1999 and took almost 20 years to exit.

You can't look at these numbers in a vacuum.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#79

Post by Nextgrid » Fri, May 15, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

johannes1234321 wrote: post #43

scared2 wrote: post #15

These kinds of acquisitions intrigue me. what is valuation crieteria? from technical and innovation perspective, what part of it is worth millions?

The fact that it is embedded in tons of software and delivers information about usage and trends.

They don't have a "moat" though - no cutting-edge technology or even content licenses (it's all stolen). Anyone can build their own alternative to it very easily and I'm confident it'll quickly happen to any company that competes with and/or feels threatened by Facebook.

Re: Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400M

#80

Post by yreg » Fri, May 15, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

txcwpalpha wrote: post #17

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'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…

I'd just like this trend of sending reaction gifs to end.

People keep posting them in Slack all the time, but I find it about as appropriate as that brief time when all my uni teachers decided that it's hip to include rage comic faces into every other slide of every presentation.

, yes I know, I'm fun at parties…