On the heels of Facebook’s debut of an augmented reality platform and updates to Messenger, Giphy announced that it’s doubling down on its investment with the social network. The company has launched three more products aimed at making it easier to use GIFs in more ways: in creative camera effects, in live video, and more natively in Messenger as a chat extension.
Giphy has been a part of the Facebook experience since 2015, where it and competitor Tenor supply the social network with GIFs across not only the social network and its comments, but also within Messenger. It was one of the first partners on the platform. And as more conversations occur across the Facebook properties, Giphy believes that GIFs will have a big impact in helping us express our opinions and feelings.
Above: Giphy Thoughts for Facebook Camera.
One of the first products is Giphy Thoughts, a service that works with the Facebook Camera so that when you take a picture, you can add a thought bubble to highlight what a person, animal, or object is “thinking.” Within the Facebook Camera, open the effects drawer and tap the Giphy Thoughts link. From there, a bubble will appear above a subject’s head with a “thought,” perhaps using face recognition to read their reaction.
Above: Giphy for Facebook Live Video.
Another tool the company released is Giphy Live for Facebook. When you want to broadcast, first tap on the magic wand icon within the Facebook Camera. Select the Giphy logo and open the effects drawer before beginning your livestream. You can tap the Giphy Live ticker at the top of the screen to select a topic to find an appropriate GIF. The selected image will appear over your shoulder, and you can insert more GIFs into your broadcast.
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Viewers can change the topic of your GIFs by commenting with hashtags. Giphy has also included Easter Eggs to allow viewers to insert GIFs into live videos through their comments.
Above: Giphy for Facebook Messenger.
Lastly, Giphy is one of the first chat extension partners, meaning that GIFs can be more natively integrated right into conversations. Within Facebook Messenger and in the add-on drawer, select Giphy and type out a word to have it translated and animated.
There are six styles from which to choose:
- Animate: Type in a word or phrase and Giphy technology animates it using a special series of fonts and motion, shuffling styles to find the perfect one.
- Decorate: Add fun animated backgrounds to your words.
- Sticker: Translate your words into an animated sticker from the Giphy Stickers library.
- GIF: Type in a word, and it will automatically give you a funny, topical, weird, or perfect GIF to drop in your conversation.
- Sign language: Type in a word or phrase and Giphy turns it into a sign language GIF from a collaboration with Sign With Robert.
- Gilphabet: Translate your word or phrase into a custom-built animated GIF alphabet — or “gilphabet” — hand made by the creative geniuses at Giphy Studios.
Previously you could only insert a GIF in response to a message, but now you’re able to do much more.
Giphy’s latest updates and new integrations are available today.
