Mashable: How to create a GIF from a TikTok video . “Gone are the days of screen recording a video on your phone and uploading it to a sketchy GIF-making website, choosing the start and end times, adjusting the frame rate, blah blah blah you know the struggle. Making GIFs can be a huge pain. GIFing on TikTok is refreshingly easy, and only takes a few taps. Here’s how to do it.”
CNET: New WWI GIFs show the poignant reality of war. “An extensive new collection of GIFs from the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City could expand the perception of the ubiquitous short clips. The GIFs capture daily life during the First World War, from the tragic to the lighthearted, providing a mesmerizing, easily scannable snapshot the museum hopes will help bring history to a younger, GIF-savvy generation.”
Mashable: 7 best apps for making quick GIFs on your phone. “DIY GIF-making is possible on your Android or iPhone smartphone if you have the right apps. Even some apps you probably already have downloaded include some hidden GIF features: You may not associate WhatsApp or Twitter with making your own silent short video sequences, but we’re here to fix all that.”
Europeana Pro: GIF IT UP – inspiring students to engage with digital cultural heritage. “With this year’s GIF IT UP competition currently taking place, Cristina Roiu talks to teenager Anamaria Şune about her experience of making GIFs and how the competition inspires educational engagement with digital cultural heritage.”
Mashable: How to GIF YouTube videos in 10 simple steps. “So you’re watching a fun video on YouTube. Neat, good for you. You’ve seen a moment you really like, and you want to convert that fun little moment from YouTube into a GIF. I get it, pal, GIFs can be fun. Don’t be embarrassed if you don’t know where to start. Creating an animated GIF from YouTube is easy and I’ve broken the process down into 10 very simple steps.”
The Next Web: This handy tool lets you record GIFs straight from your browser. “I like GIFs — perhaps to a fault. I know it’s a dying medium, but I’m still a sucker for a moving image. There’s something awfully satisfying about staring at a GIF that a JPEG can never match. The one thing I despise about GIFs, though, is how much of a hassle it is to make one. Enter GIFcap, a browser-based tool that lets you capture GIFs without the need to download or install any new software. All you need to do is load up the site, and start recording.”
I tried this and it is a wow. The Next Web: This tool automatically removes the background from any video or GIF . “It’s pretty easy to isolate a background from an image, but things get trickier when we’re dealing with video — unless you use an app that does it automatically for you. Enter Unscreen. This free tool practically lets you drop any video or GIF, and then removes the background for you, leaving only the subject in.”
Tom’s Guide: How to make a GIF: A complete guide to making GIFs on iPhone, Android and PC . “Although most mobile operating systems and messaging services are outfitted with GIF libraries, you might be wondering how to make a GIF of your own. Whether it’s a YouTube clip or personal photos and videos you want to turn into internet art, there are a few tools at your disposal.”
Search Engine Journal: Introduction to GIF Engine Optimization (GEO). “If you’re reading this, you probably know about SEO. You may even be an SEO professional that spends a significant portion of your time reading, talking, and implementing the latest SEO strategies and tactics. I’m here to introduce you to a new kind of search engine. I’m talking about GIF search engines like GIPHY and Tenor.”
Mashable: Twitter knows GIFs dominate the platform. A new accessibility feature will allow more people to enjoy them.. “If you’ve ever looked at Twitter while sports were happening, you’ve probably seen countless GIFs posted as reactions to big plays. Twitter made that slightly more accessible on Friday, adding the ability to add text descriptions to GIFs. It’s an extension of the same feature that has existed for still images for a while.”
Mashable: I deepfaked myself into a bunch of popular GIFs and the results are sincerely cursed. “A new app called Doublicat allows users personalize GIFs by morphing their own faces onto them, commonly known online as a deepfake. I, a true trailblazer at heart, decided to take on the mission of trying out Doublicat, just so y’all can know what you’re getting into. You can thank me (or hate me) later.” #5 literally made me shriek out loud.
Lifehacker: How to Turn Off Autoplay GIFs and Videos on Twitter. “No matter the reason, Twitter makes it incredibly easy to prevent media from automatically starting in your timeline. And you can disable this functionality for Twitter’s website and apps, it’s just a slightly different process for each platform.”
Washington Post: A tweet gave a journalist a seizure. His case brings new meaning to the idea of ‘online assault.’. “The Epilepsy Foundation announced on Monday it lodged a sweeping slate of criminal complaints against a legion of copycats who targeted people with epilepsy and sent them an onslaught of strobe GIFs — a frightening phenomenon that unfolded in a short period of time during the organization’s marking of National Epilepsy Awareness Month in November.”
World Intellectual Property Review: Baby Yoda GIFs back online after copyright confusion. “Viral GIFs (graphic interchange format) of a new Star Wars character, Baby Yoda, have been reinstated to a leading GIF sharing site after being temporarily removed over alleged copyright concerns.”
Boing Boing: GIF site Gfycat announces mass deletions, threatens Archive Team with lawsuit. “Gfycat is a site that people upload GIFs to so they can share them with other people reliably. Used most conspicuously to host memes, clips from other media, and animated porn, it announced Wednesday that it was planning to permanently delete old, anonymously-posted images within days. Archive Team, a web preservation initiative coordinated by Jason Scott, set about archiving the site’s soon-to-vanish content. So Gfycat’s CEO, Dan McEleney, threatened it with a lawsuit, describing archival of the memes it hosts as a ‘denial of service attack’ and demanding compensation.”
