Facebook has now purchased Giphy, the popular GIF and animated stickers platform. This is a major move by Facebook and one that looks set to primarily benefit Instagram users going forward. The question is how will it affect Giphy users in general? More specifically, those that are not Facebook or Instagram users and don’t want to use a Facebook product.
Giphy likely needs little introduction as this is a service widely used and integrated into many third-party messaging apps and social media services. Which makes it a highly popular solution for GIFs and short-looping videos that are ideal for sharing online. Now, with Facebook having confirmed the purchase, it has gotten a hold of that entire library and the power that comes with it.
Facebook announced the acquisition in a blog posting and went on to further point out how Giphy is technically joining the company “as part of the Instagram team.” While this naturally means the GIF library will be more tightly integrated into Instagram, Facebook has also made it clear that the purchase will benefit its other apps as well. Following the initial announcement, Giphy made its own, explaining how it is excited to join the Facebook and Instagram teams.
Facebook’s $400 Million Giphy Bet
Neither Facebook nor Giphy confirmed the details of the deal. However, a report by Axios just before the announcements were made indicated the acquisition was valued at around $400 million. On the surface, that would seem like a good price for Facebook to gain control over a highly used service like this. In fact, the very mentions of Instagram in the Facebook announcement do clearly point to the value and primary use case the company sees with the purchase. For example, Facebook says that half of all Giphy’s traffic comes from its app, and half of that just from Instagram alone. As a result, it does seem clear that the company is going to push forward with this as a major Instagram feature, with even tighter GIF and sticker support for Instagram Stories and Instagram Direct.
The bigger question is what does this mean for the wealth of third-party apps, including Twitter, that already use Giphy? Well, the Facebook announcement suggests nothing is majorly going to change in that respect, and the API will continue to be available and used as normal. However, that’s not to say that users of those other platforms are necessarily going to be happy with the purchase or want to use the service going forward. For some, Facebook does not have the best reputation on data protection and privacy and that might be why they have opted for another social media platform to begin with. Now, they’ll have to continue using those social media services and messaging apps knowing Facebook’s Giphy is deeply integrated.
