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Twitter Rolls Out GIF Button (usatoday.com)

Posted by yaelk on from the gifs dept.

Twitter is rolling out a new GIF button on iOS, Android, and the Web so users can now search for GIFs by keyword. They can then insert them directly into their tweets and direct messages with a single tap. According to Twitter, "more than 100 million GIFs were shared on Twitter last year... [the company] is looking to GIFs as another way to increase engagement on the service that is struggling with slowing user growth."

81 comments

  1. LOL ... copyright? by gstoddart · · Score: 1

    So, whose GIFs can you share? Surely sharing on Twitter to share a GIF doesn't give Twitter and the rest of the world the right to use it?

    Twitter seems to be assuming anything posted is fair game for everybody else to reuse.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:LOL ... copyright? by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

      Yeah because all those lawsuits against the GIF sharing community.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    2. Re:LOL ... copyright? by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Depends entirely on what it's a GIF of, and there's always always always a lawyer lurking.

      Are you suggesting that Twitter magically has copyright to every GIF ever posted to Twitter? I'm betting they don't.

      You can have a GIF of pretty much anything, including things which are copyrighted.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:LOL ... copyright? by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

      I'm suggesting it's not an issue for the same reason people sharing images, gifs, videos, etc isn't an issue for a bazillion other websites that have been in operation for a very long time.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    4. Re:LOL ... copyright? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, whose GIFs can you share? Surely sharing on Twitter to share a GIF doesn't give Twitter and the rest of the world the right to use it?

      Presumably this is why Giphy got a $55M Series C yesterday.

    5. Re:LOL ... copyright? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah because all those lawsuits against the GIF sharing community.

      If you think GIF is a format free from lawsuits, you clearly weren't around in the '90s.

    6. Re:LOL ... copyright? by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      Why GIF? Surely a PNG button would have less licencing issues

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    7. Re:LOL ... copyright? by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

      There were no lawsuits in the 90's involving the sharing of copyrighted gifs. I realize it's cool to hate Twitter, but you don't have a point here.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  2. So what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Facebook rolls out JPG button

  3. Finally! Thank God! by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 2

    Civilization is saved.

    1. Re:Finally! Thank God! by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      I think you mis-spelled "doomed".

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:Finally! Thank God! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      doomed is saved?

    3. Re:Finally! Thank God! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      doomed is saved?

      Yeah, John Carmac is working on a new version as we speak...

  4. Quesiton by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is there anyone here who even uses their Twitter account if they have one? Serious question.
    I've had it for a year, but couldn't find any rational use for it, and the userbase and content repulsed me (probably even because of the character limit influencing the quality of the average user post).
    I can just follow blog updates of my favorite artists/devs via web scrapper, and don't need Tweet following.

    For you people who hate Facebook, do you hate Twitter or Facebook more?

    1. Re:Quesiton by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think both platforms are just completely filled with crap. I've never personally used Twitter. The only one I even read is the one for the local weather people, which seems to be faster than sifting through the 500 animated ads on the weather website.

      Facebook - Mostly full of people reposting stupid pictures and "heartbreak" stories/pics of photoshopped mangled babies with captions like "Ignore if you want to burn in hell, like if you want to be saved by Jesus, Share if you're God"

      Twitter - 24x7 updates on personal shit no one cares about. "I walked into the Coney Island" "I just sat down LOLLOLLOLOLOLOL" "I have to go shit" You know, highly useful conversion tidbits.

    2. Re:Quesiton by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I opened an account at one point to test some hello-world-ish code I wrote against the Twitter API. All it did was post hourly fortunes from the Linux fortunes-mod package...

      Still probably the highest quality content on Twitter to date.

    3. Re:Quesiton by Pascoea · · Score: 2

      The only thing I ever found it to be useful for is outage tracking. Prior to taking it onto a self-hosted server a time keeping application I wrote was hosted by a hosting company. If there was an access problem I turned to twitter to see if others were complaining about outages. I remember something about some dude destroying something in a substation that took the entire city of Provo Utah offline, that's where my program was hosted. I didn't find the official explanation until the next day, but people on Twitter were bitching about it within an hour.

    4. Re:Quesiton by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2

      >> Is there anyone here who even uses their Twitter account if they have one?

      As a "write only" dump of scheduled thoughts, as part of my job, yes. In the past I've also used it when I'm at a conference to meet up with other people who I want to hang out with for a night, but don't really want to keep in touch with when the conference is over.

      >> For you people who hate Facebook, do you hate Twitter or Facebook more?

      Twitter, probably. My wife still reads Facebook and communicates with some other moms that way. Every once a while someone's husband will invite me to run a race, have some beers or clean them out in poker via some Facebook communication via the wives, so I can't hate it that much.

    5. Re:Quesiton by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      I hate facebook more at least twitter has a bit of redeeming value that you can use it to contact developers and while most still won't bother to grace you with a reply you are still better off tweeting than email if you want a reply.

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    6. Re:Quesiton by Rastl · · Score: 1

      Oddly enough I've found a couple of uses for this.

      Companies tend to respond quickly to tweets so it's handy to contact them with questions, etc.

      I'm in a 'group' of like minded hobby people that lends itself to the 140 character limit when sharing information.

      If not for the second one I wouldn't be on Twitter tho. That's the useful part for me and as long as it stays useful I'll keep my account active.

    7. Re:Quesiton by vel-ex-tech · · Score: 1

      I have a Twitter and a Facebook account. I follow NASA, CERN, LHC, JPL, ESA, etc. Occasionally my tablet reminds me I have tweets to read. Even more rarely, I click the notification. Then I wait for the Twitter app to load (no idea why it takes so long but tablet is old) just to realize I've wasted 30 seconds of my life, even with those "channels."

      My Facebook account only exists because occasionally people will link me things on IRC I need it to see.

      I wouldn't say I hate either. I'm largely indifferent. I only get irritated when some social justice drama queen throws a temper tantrum on Twitter that makes the news. Honestly, both services could shutter tomorrow and the only way it would affect me would be various friends and acquaintances complaining about Facebook being no more. I don't know anybody who regularly uses Twitter so I'd have to wait until /. or the red site ran something to find out that one shut down.

    8. Re:Quesiton by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a Twitter and a Facebook account. I follow NASA, CERN, LHC, JPL, ESA, etc. Occasionally my tablet reminds me I have tweets to read. Even more rarely, I click the notification. Then I wait for the Twitter app to load (no idea why it takes so long but tablet is old) just to realize I've wasted 30 seconds of my life, even with those "channels."

      If you want to stop wasting your life on twitter, follow Gary Busey. You'll be glad you did.

    9. Re:Quesiton by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 1

      I have an account that I created so I could log into a site that required an account linked to a social network.

      Only found a couple actual uses for it:
      -Play by play updates from things like a utility or DOT during a storm
      -Bleeding edge breaking news. Once the city was on lockdown because there was a gunman on the loose. There were updates on that, and rumours when they caught him, then the Police posted on their Twitter that they caught him. This was long before a news release.

      Other time sensitive matters. Once in the middle of the Christmas parade there was an unexpected huge gap. A quick check on twitter showed that there was a medical emergency further down the street, and indicated when it was going again.

      That's about it. Extreme time sensitive, bleeding edge information. It's useless as a crappy substitute for an RSS feeder, or to find out what Justin Bieber is thinking.

      I also don't understand Vines. Seems like Youtube for people with no attention span.

    10. Re:Quesiton by Daetrin · · Score: 1

      I got into the twitter game late, earlyish 2011, and i'm still using it.

      A quick check reveals that, loosely grouped, of the 79 people i follow, 27 are personal friends, 18 are authors (because i'm a SF/F nerd,) 7 are what i'm calling group/event accounts (conventions, meetup groups, etc), 5 are musical artists, 5 are minor geeky celebrities, 5 are "joke" accounts (Emo Kylo Ren being one of the most recent examples) 4 are themed accounts (pictures of cute animals, pictures of people doing dumb things, etc), 4 are internet friends that i've never met in person, and 4 are food trucks.

      So in general my rational uses are keeping in touch with friends, keeping abreast of events (usually on a smaller and more personal scale,) and being entertained.

      The advantage of twitter over choosing to "just follow blog updates of my favorite artists/devs via a web scrapper" is that A: i don't have to create/edit a web scapper, and B: honestly these days i don't seem to have time to keep up with writing my own blog much less reading everyone else's. There are some days where i can't even keep up with twitter and some stuff falls off the edge into the abyss. (Which in some ways is a nice feature, since that way i'm not tempted to go back and catch up from where i last left off. Unlike, for example, podcasts, where i'm currently stuck back in mid-2015 and gradually falling further and further behind.)

      You can pick any demographic you care to name and some portion of it is on twitter. Award wining scientists, best selling artists, poor and struggling artists, famous celebrities, average joes, raging assholes, total idiots, famous movie stars, less famous TV stars, unheard of podcast "stars", restaurants, stores, libraries, events, etc.

      So if you really hate the userbase, i guess you just hate the entire human race? Although it seems more likely you just don't have any cool friends on twitter and you're not very good at searching for content there and thus after a brief review you just think you hate the userbase.

      As for hating the content... I've seen some very funny things said in 140 characters. I've seen some very profound things too. And of course i've seen even more things of interest linked from tweets. But it seems like a lot of people get a feeling of superiority out of hating on Twitter, and thus heap scorn on the idiotic tweets and users and without looking very hard for counter-examples. (And similarly for G+ as well, though presumably for entirely different reasons.)

      --
      This Space Intentionally Left Blank
    11. Re:Quesiton by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 1

      It's useless as a crappy substitute for an RSS feeder, or to find out what Justin Bieber is thinking.

      Well, there it is, my New Thing for today: a reason to consider getting on Twitter.

    12. Re:Quesiton by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i guess you just hate the entire human race?

      Pretty much, yeah.

    13. Re:Quesiton by KGIII · · Score: 1

      ~$ fortune | cowsay

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    14. Re:Quesiton by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Facebook - Mostly full of people reposting stupid pictures and "heartbreak" stories/pics of photoshopped mangled babies with captions like "Ignore if you want to burn in hell, like if you want to be saved by Jesus, Share if you're God"

      Maybe you need to choose your "friends" more carefully.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    15. Re:Quesiton by WallyL · · Score: 1

      Agreed. Whenever my teamviewer session can't start, I go check twitter to see if other people are having problems. If it's the service in general, I'm less concerned about my own equipment at that point.

  5. It's All Part of Their Master Plan... by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 3, Funny

    Since their user base is dropping every month and their investors have gotten out the long knives, they've hit upon this scheme to entice lawyers to join the service and log in frequently, looking for cases they can prosecute on behalf of Big Media clients. Up to this point, lawyers, known for their long-windedness, have shied away from Twitter due to its 140-character limitations...

  6. Why gifs? by wardrich86 · · Score: 1

    Why the sudden implementation of gifs now? They're about 15 years too late... shouldn't they be pushing for gifv/webm?

    1. Re:Why gifs? by rasmusbr · · Score: 2

      Why the sudden implementation of gifs now? They're about 15 years too late... shouldn't they be pushing for gifv/webm?

      Simple. It's because of smartphones and a particular technical limitation about gifs that makes them suitable for viewing on smartphones...

      The thing about gifs is that they are unable to play sound, which means you can be 100% sure you can view one on your smartphone without risking notifying everyone within earshot that you're watching this or that video clip.

    2. Re:Why gifs? by penandpaper · · Score: 2

      The thing about gifs is that they are unable to play sound, which means you can be 100% sure you can view one on your smartphone without risking notifying everyone within earshot that you're watching this or that porn clip.

      FTFY

    3. Re:Why gifs? by KiloByte · · Score: 1

      webm is an avi-like format that allows sound -- do not want. We really should use APNGs instead of GIFs, but crappy browsers don't support them.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    4. Re:Why gifs? by malditaenvidia · · Score: 1

      Also iOS devices have yet to support webm and that's a huge chunk of their market.

    5. Re:Why gifs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why the sudden implementation of gifs now? They're about 15 years too late... shouldn't they be pushing for gifv/webm?

      Simple. It's because of smartphones and a particular technical limitation about gifs that makes them suitable for viewing on smartphones...

      The thing about gifs is that they are unable to play sound, which means you can be 100% sure you can view one on your smartphone without risking notifying everyone within earshot that you're watching this or that video clip.

      Twitter's gifs aren't really gifs anyway. They get converted to .mp4 for better compatibility with smartphones and whatever else people use to twitter.

  7. The '80s' called and by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it wants you to stop fucking using patented shit.

    1. Re:The '80s' called and by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      LZW (and by extension GIF) isn't patented any more. It expired about twelve years ago.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re:The '80s' called and by Krojack · · Score: 1

      Nope.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      The United States LZW patent expired on 20 June 2003. The counterpart patents in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy expired on 18 June 2004, the Japanese counterpart patents expired on 20 June 2004, and the counterpart Canadian patent expired on 7 July 2004. Consequently, while Unisys has further patents and patent applications relating to improvements to the LZW technique, the GIF format may now be used freely.

  8. More subscribers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe they'd have more subscribers if they stopped censoring conservatives.

    1. Re:More subscribers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not going to happen with Anita Sarkeesian part of the newly created Trust and Safety Council. On a side note, apparently shadow banning is the new for twitter.

    2. Re:More subscribers by Z80a · · Score: 1

      Not conservatives, but pretty much anyone that goes against a certain specific small clique that were given the keys of twitter now.
      It is just disguised as a political debacle, but its actually "small group of very powerful individuals vs the rest of the world."

  9. GIF or JIF by Pascoea · · Score: 1

    Maybe the Twitterverse can finally lay rest the argument over Giraffe or Gift pronunciation argument.

    1. Re:GIF or JIF by slashdice · · Score: 1

      heh, anyone else remember when GIF meant pr0n?

      And you didn't tweet them, you skeeted on them.

      --
      Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
    2. Re:GIF or JIF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesn't really matter, but for fun lets just throw a wrench into the argument. I'm going to start pronouncing it with an H sound, hif. While we are adding to the confusion some people should do a silent G, so "if". Any other ideas to add to the confusion?

    3. Re:GIF or JIF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      pepper ridge farm remembers and /gif/ remembers.

    4. Re:GIF or JIF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you considered changing your nick to something a bit more timely?

      I hear "SpiroAgnew" is available...

    5. Re:GIF or JIF by KGIII · · Score: 1

      G as in Gift.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    6. Re:GIF or JIF by slashdice · · Score: 1

      If Christians can wait 2000+ years for Jesus to come back, I can wait a couple months for dice to return!

      --
      Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
  10. Billions of dollars by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    This company is worth tens of billions of dollars. They just increased their value by 40% by this "GIF sharing" technology in the cloud.

  11. Bring the GIF button to Slashdot by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Funny

    I for one am really excited about this new feature:

    https://i.imgur.com/P82GvlT.gi...

    https://s-media-cache-ak0.pini...

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Bring the GIF button to Slashdot by lgw · · Score: 2

      IAintClickinThatShit.jpg

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    2. Re:Bring the GIF button to Slashdot by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

      IAintClickinThatShit.jpg

      Where's your sense of adventure?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:Bring the GIF button to Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Certified SafeToClick by Anonymous Coward.

    4. Re:Bring the GIF button to Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They should use APNG (officially part of HTML5 standard).
      Then they can make some extra coin by providing ad-supported plugins for IE since it is does not handle them.
      As a bonus, they could push the standard.

    5. Re:Bring the GIF button to Slashdot by lgw · · Score: 1

      Been on /. too long to be goatse trolled. (Every wonder why every URL in a comment has the destination auto-displayed by Slashcode? Entirely because of links to goatse.cx)

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    6. Re:Bring the GIF button to Slashdot by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Been on /. too long to be goatse trolled.

      I have too much respect for you and for my own trolling abilities to ever stoop to a goatse troll.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  12. more than 100 million GIFs were shared on Twitter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that statistic is NOT something to be proud of.. all the more reason to stay away, is more like it.

  13. Just what we needed by Virtucon · · Score: 1

    More cat animated gifs.. #WTF #NoThankYou

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  14. hebonicons by Archfeld · · Score: 1

    for those who are challenged by the use of overly complex things like writing and speaking. How soon until the masses speak a different language on the street and can't even comprehend the language the laws are written in or business is conducted in. Makes controlling them much easier...
    This post brought to you by the letter :(

    --
    errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
  15. Twitter Dying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've read a couple of articles recently form good sources that predict #Twitter is dying. True? I can only hope so.

    1. Re:Twitter Dying? by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 1

      I've read a couple of articles recently form good sources that predict #Twitter is dying. True? I can only hope so.

      I've found Google trends to be a good indicator of popularity.

      Twitter vs Snapchat vs Instagram

      I was surprised that Snapchat wasn't more popular, but you can see Twitter has been in decline since 2013, and Instagram is showing lots of growth (I guess lots of people want to take what improvements we made with digital imaging, and have shitty filters that look like crappy cameras, while they take selfies of their duck-face and their crappy food.

      You can see Slashdot has been on a loooong decline into irrelevance

    2. Re:Twitter Dying? by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 1

      Oh and GIFs bottomed out in 2011, and have been rising, and are now back up to 2007 levels

  16. "Slowing" user growth? by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 2

    Twitter's hemorrhaging on all counts as they continue to enable and even hire some of the most toxic bigots and abusers on their platform while shadowbanning and harassing those people's victims.

    --
    A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    1. Re:"Slowing" user growth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yup,
      Their ethic team lead by the misandry Anita...
      With herds of blacks spreading hatred against whites and groves of man hating lesbian women.

      Just makes me feel so warm and cuddly inside to think how 'progressive' twitter has become.

    2. Re:"Slowing" user growth? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's an election year. Coincidence?

  17. Wow by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    Wow, a button that lets you insert a GIF. This bold innovation is almost off the scale.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  18. Hard Gee by sexconker · · Score: 1

    That's a hard gee, FYI. I don't care who says otherwise.

  19. We said EDIT feature by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    Which part of #RIPTwitter don't you GET?

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    1. Re:We said EDIT feature by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Don't worry, they're busy listening to the serial harasser Randi Harper on how to save twitter, and ignoring the plebs.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  20. You cannot be serious .. by tetraverse · · Score: 1

    You cannot be serious, is this a sample of the brand new technology focused slashdot, a gif that you can insert into your twitter feeds?

    1. Re:You cannot be serious .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are serious, and don't call them Shirley.

  21. GIFs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Those are those things you download from CompuServe right?

  22. Twitter becoming geocities like?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or myspace...'member those ??

  23. please somebody kill GIF already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They must be extremely desperate that they should choose to focus on an image format that should have died in 1999, yet here it is wasting untold amount of bandwidth while looking incredibly shitty compared to alternatives that are a hundred times lighter.

  24. I don't like graphics on twitter. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It took me a long time to find out how to disable images. I went as far as editing my hosts file. Anyway if you hate images, browse mobile.twitter.com . No images

  25. Misleading by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Twitter doesn't post GIFs. They post MP4s and calls them "gifs". MP4s aren't GIFs.

  26. What is a GIF Button, and what does it mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have no clue, neither here nor found any hint in the article .. my only association still is the GIF-Image format, but i doubt this is what they mean althoug twitter might have a huge potential on Gopher while introducing Images where noone else could ;-)

  27. Twitter Censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe if Twitter would stop StealthBanning conservatives they wouldn't have problems growing their user base.

  28. This will really improve the user experience by allo · · Score: 1

    Even before, users started to post pictures of big smileys instead of posting just a smiley (or more appropriate: Clicking the fab button without any reply).