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B&T > The Unstoppable Social Power of the GIF
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The Unstoppable Social Power of the GIF

Staff Writers
Published on: 5th December 2014 at 8:49 AM
Staff Writers
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Many digital words have been spilled about the GIF, the photo file type that was once reserved for terrible GeoCities banners but has since become so much more than that.

Well, here’s a few more words to consider the importance of a lowly file type: The GIF has perhaps become the most common way internet denizens consume content.

And GIFs, on average, ​are the most engaging visual content on the internet (if not the most ubiquitous). And it’s not even close.

For proof, check out these series of graphs whipped up by Max Woolf, ​a data analyst in San Francisco. Earlier this week, Woolf analyzed every GIF, JPG, and PNG file that was linked to on reddit (​using a data set made available to researchers). He found that, on average, GIFs received more than twice the number of upvotes than those static image files did.

That means GIFs, which are largely animated, are outperforming all static images, including memes and other photo content that we consider to be stereotypically viral, and Woolf thinks that trend probably would play across the rest of the content-driven internet. (Static images are obviously more popular on Amazon, for example.)

“Since the core demographic of reddit users are internet-savvy, I think it would be fair to say that the results could be extrapolated to rest of the internet (even more so since reddit is one of the primary sources for viral images around the internet),” Woolf told me in an email.

Read the full article here. 

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Staff Writers
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Staff Writers represent B&T's team of award-winning reporters. Here, you'll find articles crafted with industry experience spanning over 50 years. Our team of specialists brings together a wealth of knowledge and a commitment to delivering insightful, topical, and breaking news. With a deep understanding of advertising and media, our Staff Writers are dedicated to providing industry-leading analysis and reporting, both shaping the conversation and setting the benchmark for excellence.

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