While Facebook might be the king of social media networks, it still lacks in some ways. One such way is where the company has totally failed to embrace the increasingly popular animated GIFs.
Even though the feature is now supported on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, which is now owned by Facebook, the tech giant has been unable to add the ability for users to search GIF apps such as Giphy and use the characters as comments on posts.
Apparently, this would just be the beginning of integrating GIFs into the main Facebook service and in fact, some users may start seeing a new GIF comment button as early as next week. You probably have Facebook Messenger installed on your phone and you might be enjoying the app’s GIFs already. If this is the case, the incoming GIF comment button will be no different from the one on Messenger.
When you tap on it, you’ll be able to search and find trending GIFs from a bunch of apps like the aforementioned Giphy, however, you won’t be able to share these animated characters as posts in your News Feed.
Animated GIFs are becoming an essential part of the rich media-centric online communications, especially through apps. Many instant messengers have already implemented the feature, however, Facebook was reportedly delaying the release of this feature due to fears that it would ruin the experience of the News Feed. But now that the same News Feed is already full of auto-play videos, Facebook has no reason not to support animated GIFs.
Be warned that Facebook says this GIF comment button is just a test for now and depending on the feedback it collects, we may or may not see the feature in the full version. But given the love for GIFs out there, this should definitely be a welcome addition for the more than 1.5 billion people that use this platform. Testing starts next week.