Moving pictures is a big business: you fight not just pictures, but art.

Editor’s note: This article comes from the WeChat public account “New Zhiyuan” (ID: AI_era) author: new Ji-won.

Source: VentureBeat, etc.

Editors: Mengjia, Yaxin, Xiaolin

 

Recently, Facebook announced that it has spent $ 400 million to acquire the emoji giant Giphy, and spent $ 400 million to integrate it into its Instagram. Competitors Twitter and iMessage will be affected greatly, and the old friend Twitter may never use the pictures in the Giphy library. And which one is better at Dou Tu?

During the epidemic, many companies were shy, but Facebook announced a huge acquisition:

Pull out 400 million US dollars to include Giphy, an animation website “emoji giant”, and integrate it into its Instagram.

Giphy is a motion picture search engine. Netizens can use keywords to search for the desired motion picture. Giphy has reached 300 million person-times per day, surpassing Snapchat and Twitter, and is twice that of Douyin.

More than 6 billion GIF images are generated on Giphy every day!

Only what you do n’t think of, nothing in him, is called Google in the GIF world.

For example, search for westworld

Search for “coronavirus”

Artists can also create animations on it at any time.

You think you saved an emoticon, which is actually art.

With the blessing of the GIF library, Facebook can dump the emoticon package if it does n’t match!

Facebook wrote on the official website, “Giphy makes our daily conversations more colorful. We plan to further integrate their GIF library into Instagram and our other apps to facilitate people to express themselves in a better way.

In fact, 50% of Giphy ’s traffic comes from the Facebook series of apps, and 25% comes from Instagram.

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri also tweeted to celebrate the deal:

Old Enemies TwitteCan’t use GIF library?

Giphy emoticons can be found in other chat tools Twitter, iMessage, Slack and even Tinder in the past. This Facebook acquisition will have a significant impact on the built-in Giphy integrated applications and services.

After Facebook acquired Giphy, it can collect data used by users of other platforms. Netizens said, “Zuckerberg is a Machiavelli.”

Machiavellianism, to put it simply: in order to achieve the purpose, unscrupulous political power can be used.

Machiavelli

A part of the GIF inserted when Twitter users tweeted comes from Giphy, and they can also get emoticons from Tenor.

Perhaps after Giphy was acquired, Twitter only provided Tenor ’s GIFs to users.

Twitter and Facebook are longtime rivals.

After Instagram was acquired by Facebook in 2012, Twitter cut off Instagram’s access to API functions, and Instagram later cut off Twitter’s ability to display photos in tweets.

When we use iOS’s built-in iMessage to send GIFs, Apple will also get some GIFs from Giphy. In this acquisition, Facebook will collect data on the use of Giphy by Apple users, which is contrary to Apple’s original intention to protect user privacy.

Signal claims to be an end-to-end encrypted messaging service company that focuses on privacy and security. It allows users to search for GIFs in iOS and Android messages.

The company did not disclose whether it plans to cancel Giphy as the source of the GIF after the acquisition.

According to Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike, the app has taken measures to protect user privacy. This means that Facebook may not be able to obtain any data from the Giphy GIF shared on Signal.

At present, neither TikTok, the short video app of overseas blazes, nor Tinder, the dating software, has yet to respond to requests for comment. However, both of them temporarily allow users to log in with Facebook accounts to find and use animated pictures.

Animation is a big business: you fight not just pictures, but art

As a repetitive magic short-time animation, the duration of the animation is just right, which can ease the awkward atmosphere of chatting and relieve pressure.

In 2018, Tenor and Harris polls in the United States found that 64% of people aged 18 to 44 believed that GIF was more effective in expressing their emotions than words or a single expression.

Up to now, don’t say that you are after 00 without chatting.

The development of GIF has a history of 30 years. GIF means Graphics Interchange Format: Image Interchange Format.

In fact, as early as 1833, Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau and Austrian mathematician Simon von Stampfer had invented Phenakistiscope (Fenac mirror), a magical animation using the principle of persistence of vision.

In 1987, the world ’s first self-moving picture was born. The company that created it, CompuServe, gave it a domineering name, 87A.

By 1993, GIF became a large-scale Internet product and the preferred image format for Netscape ’s Mosaic browser.

The magic picture below is one of the hottest GIFs in the 1990s.

It was not until the rise of the next generation of people that it gradually attracted the attention of more investors, and the animation website also ushered in explosive growth.

Giphy is not the only unicorn in the animation world. Tenor, founded in 2014, is also a heavyweight player.

In addition to Facebook, Google boss also attached great importance to the animation market. The acquisition of Tenor in 2018 caused a huge impact on Giphy. Now Facebook is not outdone.

Previously, Tenor tried to use new technology to integrate GIF into AR.

Tenor released a software development kit (SDK) for Unity and Apple ’s ARKit developers, enabling them to integrate animated GIFs into AR apps and games.

Look at this video that integrates GIF into AR:

At the same time, Giphy has developed several mobile application products. Including:

GIPHY: The GIF Search Engine The GIF search engine can distribute GIFs to Instagram through video sharing.

GIPHY Cam. The GIF Creator GIF production tool, by recording video, adding filters and stickers, special effects, etc., to create and share your own exclusive GIF animation, launched in August 2015.

GIPHY World: AR GIF Stickers A sticker making tool that uses AR technology: Users can use the 3D technology in the product to add stickers to real-life scenes in the camera for video recording and sharing.

GIPHY Says: Speech to GIFs language conversion GIF tool: Users can record speech videos to convert voice sentences into GIF text.

Reference link:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/16/21260104/facebook-giphy-acquisition-twitter-slack-snapchat-apple-imessage-signal-facebook-tinder

https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-acquiring-startups-antitrust-scrutiny-giphy-2020-5