On Friday, The Next Web spotted a new GIF option available in Facebook’s camera interface. The new feature addition was confirmed by the social giant, who said users can now record their own GIFs and share them through the platform.
Matthew Hughes of TNW and others have pointed out that this seems to be an iOS exclusive feature for the time being, and that Android support may come at a later date. Even those devices running the latest version of the OS and the app do not show GIF options up on top.
While Facebook wasn’t too warm on GIFs on the social network a couple of years ago, it seems to be increasingly adopting the idea and bringing it to all corners of the site where people have long wanted to use them.
How to make your own GIFs on Facebook
iPhone users with the Facebook app know to swipe left to access the platform’s built-in camera. From there, next to the Normal setting for pictures and video, there will be a GIF tab that you can select to shoot a short video that will then export as a GIF.
The process is relatively straightforward, and the resulting media lasts only a couple of seconds. As expected, you can use Facebook’s entire array of frames, filters, and effects to create GIFs as well, giving iOS fans a wide range of creative tools.
After you are done, you can choose to share your GIF however you want through Facebook. The social network allows you simply post them to your profile; use them statuses for your Facebook Story, and most recently reply with them in comment sections.
You can also save Facebook-made GIFs to your Photos, but they apparently save as videos so it won’t be as seamless to share them later as GIFs outside their native platform.
Facebook might be getting ready for a stronger move on GIFs
Company statistics say more than 13 billion GIFs were shared over their instant messaging service last year alone, a move that prompted them to ease up on their anti-gif stance from previous years and launch a GIF button on comment sections last month.
Facebook users shared as many as 400 million GIFs on New Year’s, letting the company hear loud and clear that there is an unexploited market there that they can seek to exploit in coming months.
Representatives from the social giant have said the GIF-making feature is being tested with a small pool of iOS users only, and that outlets can expect official word from them over the next couple of weeks.
Source: The Next Web
