Facebook is bolstering its GIF support to make it even more central to the Messenger app.
Back at the end of May, Facebook introduced support for GIFs, those little looping animated snippets that are rife on comment sections and forums around the internet.
You couldn’t upload them, however. Instead you had to paste a link to a GIF stored on a different site, such as Imgur or Giphy.
Following up on the introduction of a number of third party GIF apps that work inside of Messenger, Facebook has begun testing a feature that will integrated GIFs fully into its Messenger app.
A dedicated GIF button (in the form of a magnifying glass alongside the typing field) has been spotted by some users in Canada.
As Mashable discovered, tapping this button turns the typing field into a search bar dedicated to locating GIFs on GIPHY and Riffsy, alongside Messenger’s own sticker collection.
It removes the decidedly clunky process of booting up a dedicated app just to find the animated snipped that meets your – let’s face it, fairly flimsy – needs. Facebook has revealed that the list of GIF sources will expand in future
Read More: Facebook F8 conference highlights
It’s interesting to see how Facebook is starting to unify its feature sets, and even going so far as to incorporate third party services into its apps where necessary.
If we had a GIF of a cat looking thoughtful to hand, we might insert it right here.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.