When Facebook confirmed that it had acquired Giphy last week for a cool $400 million, the reasons weren’t immediately apparent. Giphy has only the seeds of an advertising business, and GIFs aren’t a revolutionary advertising product. Mark Zuckerberg has a habit of knowing where the puck is going, but his company will have some real work ahead of it to make Giphy an advertising powerhouse. Still, the purchase may be worth it just for the insights it could yield about what web platforms people are visiting and what they’re sharing there.
Giphy runs a large searchable database of GIF images that can be called up by users on social media and messaging platforms via an application programming interface (API). The venture-backed startup has built up a sizable user base of 65 million monthly active users since its launch in 2013 (two of its investors declined to comment on the acquisition). Giphy was just beginning to allow advertisers to sponsor GIFs and add video overlays to…
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Source : fastcompany.com
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