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Twitter Rolls Out GIF Button (usatoday.com)
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."
Civilization is saved.
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...
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.
>> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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."