Be honest, you use WhatsApp, but you also use Facebook Messenger a lot. Probably more than you realize. If so, than this new feature will excite you a lot: soon, Facebook will Gif your Messenger.
What does that mean? Gifs, gifs everywhere! Well, recently, Facebook has quietly, secretly begun limited testing a new feature to be added to the Messenger app.
The test implied adding the feature to a very small group of Messenger users from Canada. The report from Mashable says you can verify if you’ve received this feature by simply loading up the application and looking to the right of place where you type a message. There, you should see a magnifying glass, right above your QWERTY virtual keyboard.
If you tap the icon, it should open – you guessed it – a search bar. Through that search bar you may search Messenger’s collection of stickers. But, that feature already exists on all current versions of the app. What’s new is that it not only searches in the sticker collection, but it also looks through a GIF image database comprised of the combined files from both Giphy, the most popular GIF website, as well as Riffsy, the second most popular.
Mashable also reports that a Facebook spokesperson told them that thee search feature will eventually encompass more Gif providers and apps.
So, Facebook really wants you to start using more gifs, no matter how exactly you choose to pronounce that word.
Yet, until the new feature will be made available on a wider range, users will have to rely on the old and complicated method of searching for gifs online by opening a browser on their mobile devices, or by looking up gifs in the dedicated apps provided. The problem with the latter seems to be the fact that it allows selection from a very small amount of gifs, nowhere near the entire library that will be made available through this newest feature.
This is an interesting feature, which will greatly improve user experience, something not that usual with Facebook’s policies. But, judging by the sheer amount of Facebook Messenger users – which add up to 700 million active users each month – this new idea that the brains behind the Facebook wall have is sure to cause a lot of happy, smiley faces.
Image source: cnet3.cbsistatic.com
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