5 ms·

It's analogous to building a 30+ person company around MS Office clip art circa 1995 or Print Shop banner designs circa 1985, only now the company is valued at

by VeilEm 11y ago

It's analogous to building a 30+ person company around MS Office clip art circa 1995 or Print Shop banner designs circa 1985, only now the company is valued at $300m with $50m funding. For gif search. Because I need those memes and I need them fast?

xienze 11y ago
The difference is, that clip art company was directly selling a product. Make a collection of clipart, customers pay money.
- Tenhundfeld 11y ago
  I guess your critique is that Giphy doesn't have a clear, announced monetization strategy? That sounds fair. I haven't done any research on the company, but that seemed vague in their recent funding announcement/valuation. However, I think it's fair to say that Giphy has created something people want to use. Anecdotally, their Slack integration is very popular in the channels I frequent. Maybe the lack of public monetization plan means bubble to you, but it seems the business at least has some value. I don't know if they'll be able to turn that value into revenue, but it seems plausible to me. I'm not really arguing against your opinion. I'm just trying to get clarity on exactly why you think Giphy is indicative of a bubble. Searching for funny gifs may seem frivolous, but it's something people value. If Giphy can capitalize on that value without losing users / destroying the brand, it seems like a reasonable foundation for a business.
  - xienze 11y ago
    What makes this indicative of a bubble is the combination of: a. Business centered around an utterly frivolous endeavor b. Seemingly far more employees than necessary to support (a) c. Many millions of dollars raised in the pursuit of (a) and (b) You're absolutely correct that people want to use it. But they sure as hell aren't gonna pay directly for it or put up with ads. This is not a business made to last. I know it, you know it, we all know it. Yet there are people out there willing to toss $55M into this folly.
    - Tenhundfeld 11y ago
      Yeah, I guess I put less weight on your point a. Frivolity doesn't necessarily mean an inability to generate revenue. Things that seem frivolous at first or frivolous to certain people can turn into a Real Business™. However, I agree that people wouldn't pay for it or put up with ads. As a casual Giphy user, I certainly wouldn't pay for it, and to your point, I wouldn't invest my own money in Giphy. Anyway, thanks for spelling out your reasoning. Cheers.
    - api 11y ago
      Your (b) is a big one in my mind. The core of giphy could be run by one person. There's probably enough monetization potential here for a good healthy lifestyle business for 1-3 people.
    - cbhl 11y ago
      What about sponsored GIFs from your favorite top brands? Something like Purina Beggin, or Tide, or American Airlines.
    - makeee 11y ago
      Actually Giphy has a pretty sound business model. They are already integrated into most of the large communication services used in the US (facebook messenger, twitter, slack, kik). When a movie studio wants to promote their next film they are going to pay Giphy a lot of money to make sure their gifs are featured. It's not inconceivable that that Giphy and it's like (Riffsy, PopKey) become a massive advertising channel for movies and tv. $300m seems like a lot, but I don't think it's ridiculous.
    - dfischer 11y ago
      Valid points but I think you're underestimating pop culture and how things like gifs are being used by the masses. Users always end up having value because of ads. People always pay for that.
  - dandandan 11y ago
    I think it's more relevant that Giphy isn't providing any original content, whereas the clipart vendors were selling their own media. Giphy is merely providing hosting for users' content, much of which is copyrighted.
Keats 11y ago
If only the gif search worked. 75% of the time when I do a giphy search on slack i get completely unrelated gifs.
- Gmo 11y ago
  Same here, useless 90% of the time.
- theTaggedTags 11y ago
  It's all about the tags. You have to work in the other direction. Find something well-tagged, then giphy the fully qualified tag that produces the same gif every time. Granted, this is not a "search engine" type of use case, but the actual existence of some gifs, and the tags applied, force a degree of compromise.
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago
    That we're still at manual tagging says a lot about current state classificators despite all the press they generate
  - Keats 11y ago
    I am not the one that got $50M in funding though, I just want to use their one line integration on slack. That's up to them to make it not work, not me.
- derFunk 11y ago
  You nailed it. See my comment from yesterday, it's the same for me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11113644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11113644

by VeilEm 11y ago

xienze 11y ago

The difference is, that clip art company was directly selling a product. Make a collection of clipart, customers pay money.

Tenhundfeld 11y ago
I guess your critique is that Giphy doesn't have a clear, announced monetization strategy? That sounds fair. I haven't done any research on the company, but that seemed vague in their recent funding announcement/valuation. However, I think it's fair to say that Giphy has created something people want to use. Anecdotally, their Slack integration is very popular in the channels I frequent. Maybe the lack of public monetization plan means bubble to you, but it seems the business at least has some value. I don't know if they'll be able to turn that value into revenue, but it seems plausible to me. I'm not really arguing against your opinion. I'm just trying to get clarity on exactly why you think Giphy is indicative of a bubble. Searching for funny gifs may seem frivolous, but it's something people value. If Giphy can capitalize on that value without losing users / destroying the brand, it seems like a reasonable foundation for a business.
- xienze 11y ago
  What makes this indicative of a bubble is the combination of: a. Business centered around an utterly frivolous endeavor b. Seemingly far more employees than necessary to support (a) c. Many millions of dollars raised in the pursuit of (a) and (b) You're absolutely correct that people want to use it. But they sure as hell aren't gonna pay directly for it or put up with ads. This is not a business made to last. I know it, you know it, we all know it. Yet there are people out there willing to toss $55M into this folly.
  - Tenhundfeld 11y ago
    Yeah, I guess I put less weight on your point a. Frivolity doesn't necessarily mean an inability to generate revenue. Things that seem frivolous at first or frivolous to certain people can turn into a Real Business™. However, I agree that people wouldn't pay for it or put up with ads. As a casual Giphy user, I certainly wouldn't pay for it, and to your point, I wouldn't invest my own money in Giphy. Anyway, thanks for spelling out your reasoning. Cheers.
  - api 11y ago
    Your (b) is a big one in my mind. The core of giphy could be run by one person. There's probably enough monetization potential here for a good healthy lifestyle business for 1-3 people.
  - cbhl 11y ago
    What about sponsored GIFs from your favorite top brands? Something like Purina Beggin, or Tide, or American Airlines.
  - makeee 11y ago
    Actually Giphy has a pretty sound business model. They are already integrated into most of the large communication services used in the US (facebook messenger, twitter, slack, kik). When a movie studio wants to promote their next film they are going to pay Giphy a lot of money to make sure their gifs are featured. It's not inconceivable that that Giphy and it's like (Riffsy, PopKey) become a massive advertising channel for movies and tv. $300m seems like a lot, but I don't think it's ridiculous.
  - dfischer 11y ago
    Valid points but I think you're underestimating pop culture and how things like gifs are being used by the masses. Users always end up having value because of ads. People always pay for that.
- dandandan 11y ago
  I think it's more relevant that Giphy isn't providing any original content, whereas the clipart vendors were selling their own media. Giphy is merely providing hosting for users' content, much of which is copyrighted.

Keats 11y ago

If only the gif search worked. 75% of the time when I do a giphy search on slack i get completely unrelated gifs.

Gmo 11y ago
Same here, useless 90% of the time.
theTaggedTags 11y ago
It's all about the tags. You have to work in the other direction. Find something well-tagged, then giphy the fully qualified tag that produces the same gif every time. Granted, this is not a "search engine" type of use case, but the actual existence of some gifs, and the tags applied, force a degree of compromise.
- LoSboccacc 11y ago
  That we're still at manual tagging says a lot about current state classificators despite all the press they generate
- Keats 11y ago
  I am not the one that got $50M in funding though, I just want to use their one line integration on slack. That's up to them to make it not work, not me.
derFunk 11y ago
You nailed it. See my comment from yesterday, it's the same for me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11113644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11113644