Facebook is acquiring Giphy, one of the most popular GIF-sharing sites on the web, in a deal that’s reportedly valued at $400 million.
In Facebook’s official announcement, the company reveals Giphy will be joining the Instagram team:
“GIPHY, a leader in visual expression and creation, is joining the Facebook company today as part of the Instagram team.”
Facebook goes on to state Giphy’s library will be further integrated with Instagram, as well as the company’s other apps:
“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.”
Instagram and Facebook already utilize Giphy’s library – over half of Giphy’s traffic comes from the Facebook family of apps.
Facebook plans to continue this integration in a way that further enhances the user experience.
“By bringing Instagram and GIPHY together, we can make it easier for people to find the perfect GIFs and stickers in Stories and Direct.
We’ve used GIPHY’s API for years, not just in Instagram, but in the Facebook app, Messenger and WhatsApp.”
Giphy will continue to operate its library, while Facebook will work on furthering the development of Giphy’s technology and strengthening relationships with content and API partners.
Other services rely on Giphy’s API in addition to Facebook and Instagram.
Pinterest, Twitter, Slack, Reddit, and others all utilize Giphy’s content library. According to Facebook, they will still be able to.
For users and API partners it will be business as usual – people will still be able to upload GIFs and publish them on other platforms.
Developers and API partners will continue to have the same access to Giphy’s APIs, so there will be no disruption to any services.
Vishal Shah, VP of Product at Facebook, expresses what the acquisition of Giphy means for the company:
“GIFs and stickers give people meaningful and creative ways to express themselves. We see the positivity in how people use GIPHY in our products today, and we know that bringing the GIPHY team’s creativity and talent together with ours will only accelerate how people use visual communication to connect with each other.“
GIPHY Comments on the Acquisition
Giphy published its own announcement of the acquisition and reiterated how it’s committed to being openly available to developers.
“And for our API/SDK partners and developers: GIPHY’s GIFs, Stickers, Emojis, etc. aren’t going anywhere. We will continue to make GIPHY openly available to the wider ecosystem.”
Giphy’s announcement touches on the company’s plans to continue its work with Instagram, but doesn’t expand on what it will bring to Facebook’s other services.
“We’ve had a lot of fun teaming up with Instagram over the years; GIPHY’s Stickers were the perfect fit for layering on Instagram Stories, while our GIF search allowed everyone to capture that perfect emotion in Instagram’s DMs.
Based on the success of those collaborations (and many others) we know that there are exciting times ahead of us.”
Sources: Facebook Newsroom, Axios, Medium
