Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) Supports Animated GIFs Allowing Users Share More Fun

Technology
by Jim Gilliam
May 31, 20150 comments

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is launching support for animated GIFs in News Feed in order to provide users opportunity to share more fun and expressive things with their friends on the social networking site, according to a company’s spokesperson.

Today, the company confirmed that it would now support animated GIFs on the social site in News Feed. The update is rolling out still so every user might not be able to observe the added functionality immediately. The move indicates a significant change brought by Facebook which has been avoiding to support GIFs in the past, arguing that the act will make its News Feed “too chaotic”.

Until now, the company’s main focus was on video, instead of allowing GIFs. In late 2013, the company launched support for auto-playing videos but the move has not lead it to roll out support for GIFs despite introducing a more lively and animated feel to the News Feed.

In order to try on the new feature, users can insert a link from a GIF hosted external website like Imgur, Giphy, Tumblr or elsewhere, into their status update box and then could publish. After the post, GIF would be animated inline. Currently, users could not be able to upload GIFs directly and see the same results.

On the social site, GIFs would auto play in accordance with users’ current video autoplay settings. If they opt to disable autoplay in the settings, they can click a GIF as shown by “GIF” on the image in a white circle, to play it as an alternative.

It was also found that GIFs were animated automatically in the company’s native mobile application, but were not available on the mobile website. The company has not provided any further technical details related to its GIF support, along with its plans for Pages support, mobile support and more.

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s stock on 29 May traded at beginning with a price of $80.00 and when day-trade ended the stock finally decreased -1.20% to end at $79.19. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s showed weekly performance of -1.60%.

Source: https://www.benchmarkmonitor.com/facebook-inc-nasdaqfb-supports-animated-gifs-allowing-users-share-more-fun/185888/

About Travis Garlick 1822 Articles
Been writing about and trading stocks since 2013. Manage a group of micro-cap investors on Facebook with over 15,000 members. Turned $8,500 into 185k the first year I started trading stocks and haven't looked back.