It seems that Facebook will buy Giphy, which is one of the most popular GIF sites out there. The price of Facebook will have to pay $400 million.
In the official announcement made by Facebook, they stated: “GIPHY, a leader in visual expression and creation, is joining the Facebook company today as part of the Instagram team. GIPHY makes everyday conversations more entertaining, and so we plan to further integrate their GIF library into Instagram and our other apps so that people can find just the right way to express themselves.”
The thing is that both Facebook and Instagram already use Giphy for their gifs, and more than half of the traffic for Giphy comes from the Facebook-owned apps. Facebook wants to do this in order to enhance the user experience. They can make it easier to find the best GIFs and stickers on Instagram for both Direct and Stories. They used Giphy for the entire family: WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook.
Giphy will still be in control of its library, but Facebook will work on the development of the technology of Giphy, and will also work on the relationships with content and API partners. There are also other services that basically rely on the API of Giphy, besides the Facebook family. We are talking about Slack, Reddit, Twitter, and Pinterest. This will still be available after the purchase. People will always be able to upload Gifs on other platforms, as well. There will be no disruption whatsoever to any services.
Vishal Shah, who is the VP of Product at Facebook, stated that both Gifs and stickers are essential to people because they offer creative ways to express themselves nowadays. It will just help people connect with each other.
