Facebook on the 15th of May sealed the acquisition of Giphy, a popular GIF bank site , for a reported price of USD 400 million with futurist plans to integrate it’s massive GIF library into Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.
On any other day, this would call for some champagne and wine toast but those might have to be put on ice just yet.
There are host of other apps and services which are direct Facebook competitors that rely on Giphy’s API for supplying Gifs on their platforms, including Twitter, Pinterest, Slack and more.
What does this mean for them? How about the creators? Is there a way they could come to a truce? What is Facebook going to do with 700million Giphy users?
Or better still put, Facebook’s terms for usage could now really kick them out without kicking ’em out…
Here’s how the problem might possibly set off
With the new change, some of the other popular apps that rely on Giphy to let users share and post GIFs, including Apple’s iMessage, TikTok and Twitter, might not want to have a Facebook-owned platform integrated with their products moving forward.
Besides not wanting to rely on major competitors, Facebook has had issues with privacy and
reliability.
You don’t want to get your hands dirty with a Cambridge Anytica-kindof issues right…
Vishal Shah, Instagram’s VP of product already confirmed “People will still be able to upload GIFs; developers and API partners will continue to have the same access to Giphy’s APIs; and Giphy’s creative community will still be able to create great content,” but it’s only a case of when not if the vote of assurance really has an endpoint.
Some companies are already closing the door
It’s quite obvious Twitter and Facebook has had a long rivalry for a while now.
For example, Instagram cut off Twitter’s ability to display its photos inside of tweets back in 2012, so sticking with Giphy might not even be in the cards for the social media app.
Besides Giphy, Twitter also relies on Tenor for GIFS. There could be a possibility that they could rely on that instead of Giphy.
Other apps like iMessage, Snapchat, TikTok, Tinder, Pinterest, Reddit and Trello hasn’t yet made statements regarding plans to change how they work with the GIF site.
However, apps like TikTok and Tinder offer the option to log in with your Facebook account so they might not be too concerned about Facebook’s acquisition.
Moving forward…
Let’s be honest, ever since the
coronavirus outbreak, many OEMs have been on the lookout for any clear strategy to knock competitors off there peach.
Now social channels like Twitter, telegram and even Snapchat could drop support for the service at any moment after Facebook’s acquisition.
Besides not wanting to rely on a major competitor, Facebook has had issues with privacy and
reliability right from the off to the Cambridge Analytica issue .
The implications are very much evident but, who knows, this might be Facebook’s biggest win in 2020 yet or just one of those that gets thrown in the trashcan.
Originally Posted On NaijaTechGuy
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