Facebook recently announced its plans to acquire GIPHY, a massive library boasting billions of GIFs, but it didn’t confirm how much it would pay for the acquisition.
However, Axios now reports the social media giant will shell out about $400 million dollars for the company, which it plans to add to its Instagram team.
According to Facebook, 50% of GIPHY’s traffic already comes from Facebook’s family of apps, and half of that traffic is from Instagram. By acquiring GIPHY and rolling it into photo-sharing service, Facebook will make it easier for its users to find and use the ideal GIFs and stickers in their Stories or when sending direct messages.
In its announcement, Facebook confirmed that GIPHY will continue to operate its library, including its global content collection. Facebook also plans to invest in GIPHY’s current tech and API partners to ensure its users retain their access. Those who use GIPHY will still be able to upload GIFs to the platform too.
Vishal Shah, VP of product at Facebook, said of the acquisition: “GIFs and stickers give people meaningful and creative ways to express themselves. We see the positivity in how people use GIPHY in our products today, and we know that bringing the GIPHY team’s creativity and talent together with ours will only accelerate how people use visual communication to connect with each other.”
While this acquisition is exciting for Instagram users, it calls into question how this purchase will impact other platforms using its library. Apple, Snapchat, MailChimp, Signal and many more source GIFs from the GIPHY library. Many of these companies, Signal being one of them, have been steadfast in ensuring GIPHY can’t track its users’ data and have responded to Facebook’s acquisition of the company.
Now that GIPHY has found itself under the Facebook umbrella, who knows if the GIF library will begin to track and share additional user information with Facebook. If so, we could see companies ceasing their GIPHY use.
Regardless, acquiring GIPHY is a smart move for Facebook. In 2016, GIPHY carried a $600 million value, $200 million more than Facebook reportedly bought it for.
