3 ms·

It’s a library of content for a feature that’s considered table stakes for modern chat clients. If it wasn’t worth anything why would Facebook have paid so much

by lovich 4y ago

It’s a library of content for a feature that’s considered table stakes for modern chat clients. If it wasn’t worth anything why would Facebook have paid so much for it?

ch4s3 4y ago
> considered table stakes for modern chat clients I'm not so sure about that. I rarely see anyone using them anymore and have read reports that usage is declining. Even if it is table stakes, nothing stops you from rendering gifs without gify integration.
- lovich 4y ago
  Nothing stops you from starting a new service for any sort of content library. The moat is in the content creation/curation, and in this case that content is centered around gifs. If you want to get really reductive we could point towards any sort of content based business on the internet as merely moving files over http/https but I don’t think anyone would find it reasonable to compare Netflix and Kindle’s book library as competing in the same market
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    > Nothing stops you from starting a new service for any sort of content library. Content licensing does. Try creating an alternative streaming platform that has the entire Netflix library and see how quickly you get shut down. Facebook can't sue you if you create a rival gif service. None of the value is in their "content". All the value is in the search and ui
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      > All the value is in the search and ui I'm pretty sure that value is approximately $0.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    Why would you even want to for gifs? The value seems super low compared to the effort. What value did gify even provide facebook? The data is probably next to worthless. Gifs in text chat seem like a fading fad, and are probably a bad user experience. The whole thing seems like a huge boondoggle, and the idea that it gives facebook any leverage anywhere is laughable.
    - lovich 4y ago
      I’m going to point towards Facebook spending 600 million to buy giphy and the regulators deciding this gave too much monopoly power to the point of requiring Meta to sell the business, as self evident proof that it’s valuable. I get that you, personally, don’t value it but large organizations apparently do
      - ch4s3 4y ago
        I don’t think that proves that either Facebook or UK regulators are rational actors. I’m also not aware of any earnings reports from Facebook point to any return on that investment. It also doesn’t seem like there have been many gify copycats. [*edit] I'd also add that Facebook's share price dropped 15% the month the original deal was announced, and took two months to recover. It seems like the market agreed that it was a bad deal.
        lovich 4y ago
        This is kind getting tautological here when you’re saying that just because someone/some group values it doesn’t make it valuable, especially when we have two fairly large organizations involved. I’d need your definition of what “valuable” is before we could have a useful conversation
        ch4s3 4y ago
        It seems obvious to me that the value of any business deal could be measured in attributed revenue or movement in stock price. On both points, this deal looked like shit.
squeaky-clean 4y ago
Facebook doesn't own any of the gifs in giphy. So "cutting off the supply" doesn't really make sense. Lots of them could probably be considered copyright infringement if a company wanted to be litigious enough. I'm pretty sure they don't have a license for all the thousands of subtitled Star Wars clips you can find on there, for example.
- lovich 4y ago
  Cutting off the easy to use single place for content can have the same affect on usage rates as actually legally limiting access. Most people on this forum work in an industry where it’s common knowledge that even an extra second of initial load time will drastically increase your bounce rate. The frictionless experience you get with giphy is part of the content curation that is the moat for them

by lovich 4y ago

It’s a library of content for a feature that’s considered table stakes for modern chat clients. If it wasn’t worth anything why would Facebook have paid so much for it?

ch4s3 4y ago

> considered table stakes for modern chat clients I'm not so sure about that. I rarely see anyone using them anymore and have read reports that usage is declining. Even if it is table stakes, nothing stops you from rendering gifs without gify integration.

lovich 4y ago
Nothing stops you from starting a new service for any sort of content library. The moat is in the content creation/curation, and in this case that content is centered around gifs. If you want to get really reductive we could point towards any sort of content based business on the internet as merely moving files over http/https but I don’t think anyone would find it reasonable to compare Netflix and Kindle’s book library as competing in the same market
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  > Nothing stops you from starting a new service for any sort of content library. Content licensing does. Try creating an alternative streaming platform that has the entire Netflix library and see how quickly you get shut down. Facebook can't sue you if you create a rival gif service. None of the value is in their "content". All the value is in the search and ui
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    > All the value is in the search and ui I'm pretty sure that value is approximately $0.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Why would you even want to for gifs? The value seems super low compared to the effort. What value did gify even provide facebook? The data is probably next to worthless. Gifs in text chat seem like a fading fad, and are probably a bad user experience. The whole thing seems like a huge boondoggle, and the idea that it gives facebook any leverage anywhere is laughable.
  - lovich 4y ago
    I’m going to point towards Facebook spending 600 million to buy giphy and the regulators deciding this gave too much monopoly power to the point of requiring Meta to sell the business, as self evident proof that it’s valuable. I get that you, personally, don’t value it but large organizations apparently do
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      I don’t think that proves that either Facebook or UK regulators are rational actors. I’m also not aware of any earnings reports from Facebook point to any return on that investment. It also doesn’t seem like there have been many gify copycats. [*edit] I'd also add that Facebook's share price dropped 15% the month the original deal was announced, and took two months to recover. It seems like the market agreed that it was a bad deal.
      - lovich 4y ago
        This is kind getting tautological here when you’re saying that just because someone/some group values it doesn’t make it valuable, especially when we have two fairly large organizations involved. I’d need your definition of what “valuable” is before we could have a useful conversation
        ch4s3 4y ago
        It seems obvious to me that the value of any business deal could be measured in attributed revenue or movement in stock price. On both points, this deal looked like shit.

squeaky-clean 4y ago

Facebook doesn't own any of the gifs in giphy. So "cutting off the supply" doesn't really make sense. Lots of them could probably be considered copyright infringement if a company wanted to be litigious enough. I'm pretty sure they don't have a license for all the thousands of subtitled Star Wars clips you can find on there, for example.

lovich 4y ago
Cutting off the easy to use single place for content can have the same affect on usage rates as actually legally limiting access. Most people on this forum work in an industry where it’s common knowledge that even an extra second of initial load time will drastically increase your bounce rate. The frictionless experience you get with giphy is part of the content curation that is the moat for them