If you're looking for a GIF on the web, chances are you'll come across Giphy very early in your research. Now Facebook has bought the massive GIF library for €400 million (about $330 million / A$625 million). Facebook says that the Giphy team will now work as part of Instagram, so you can expect to make searching for GIFs in the social media app more seamless than ever. It looks like the Giphy site and apps will remain as they are, at least for now. "Giphy, a leader in visual expression and creation, now joins Facebook as part of the Instagram team," Facebook's Vishal Shah wrote in a blog post.
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"Giphy makes everyday conversations more entertaining, so we plan to further integrate its GIF library into Instagram and our other apps so people can find the right way to express themselves."
Just keep GIFing
It's not immediately known what this means for various Giphy products, such as the Giphy app. Facebook says that users will still be able to download GIFs from the site and that other apps will still have access to the Giphy API. The blog announcing the news also mentions that 50% of Giphy's traffic already comes from the "Facebook family of apps." Of course, there's no better way to respond to something on Facebook or Instagram than with a GIF. This is just the latest in a long line of Facebook app and website acquisitions. You may recall that the social media giant bought Instagram for €1 billion in 2012, just as it was becoming popular enough to threaten Facebook. Instagram co-founders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom quit in 2018, apparently due to tensions with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. WhatsApp was another big buy in 2014, and now the WhatsApp co-founder is warning people to delete Facebook.