Giphy- The One Stop Shop for GIFs

When I first discovered Memes, I thought that there would never be a greater thing to distract me from being productive. What great entertainment they provide! Comedic photos with captions, what could be better? Then I discovered GIFs, or Graphic Interchange Format. Photo videos with captions! Brilliant!

GIFs were introduced by CompuServe in 1987. Much like everything that was produced in the 80's original GIFs were a bit tacky and overdone. (Think big shoulder pads, huge hair, fluorescent makeup, and lots of sequins and spandex.)

I stumbled upon Giphy a few weeks back. As soon as I realized what it was, I tried to pull away, but it was too late and I was already sucked in. This genius website is a compilation of thousands of GIFs. It makes it very simple to find themed GIFs and is an amazing GIF search alternative to Google.

Basically any themed GIF can be found using the search bar on the site. I spent about an hour on the Mean Girls category pages, alone. The opportunities for distractions from work, school, or the gym are endless. Enter with caution, it is addictive, but amazing!



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One of the founders, Jace Cooke, was kind enough to answer some of my questions about Giphy.

1. What is the background of the creators?

 As you know, the founders are myself (Jace Cooke) and Alex Chung. We've been friends and collaborators for a few years.  My experience is in product design while Alex is a true hacker, working everywhere from MTV to Paul Allen's R&D team.  We also both have had previous companies acquired (Facebook and Google, respectively.)  

2. What inspired you to create Giphy?

Giphy started as fun side project based on conversations about how and why people communicate (or could communicate) with moving images.

3. What makes Giphy different than other search engines?

Well, I can't say definitively that we were the first animated GIF search engine, but I personally don't know of any other sites collecting hundreds of thousands of GIFs in one place, with robust tagging and links to every source.  Plus I don't think of Giphy so much as a search engine anymore, but rather a growing destination for discovering, hosting and creating GIFs.  

4. How long did it take to create the site?(From idea to tangible, working product)

The first version of the site took ~5 weekends to build.

5. What advice do you have for aspiring hackers?

Pick a small problem that irks you.  Try and solve it.  Share your solution.  Figure out everything you did wrong.  Repeat.  

6. What's the next project(if you can tell me!)?

Giphy has become our full-time project for the foreseeable future.

7. Favorite code language?

Whichever requires the least lines of code

8. Read any good books or seen any good movies lately?

I'm obsessed with every essay and talk Bret Victor puts out.

Thank you, Giphy, for this amazing site!
 
Go for it. Giphy if you dare!