The resurgence of animated GIFs

[Peter Lawrence]

While CompuServe as originally conceived as an omnibus online community,
information and service provide has gone the way of the Dodo, one of its
creations, the GIF file format (and more specifically, animated GIFs) have
not only NOT gone away, but has been experiencing a remarkable resurgence
during the past several years.

Never seen such proliferation of such an old file format that had fallen out
of favor several times during its long life only to gain favor and use in
recent times. (Unlike JPEG file format that has never ceased being popular.)

Not too shabby for a very basic 256-bit file format created back in 1987.

Here's a 2012 video from PBS discussing the GIF file format resurgence. And
now in 2014, I think animated GIFs are now even MORE popular than they were
even two years (in other works, it's not just a short-term fad):

Did anyone see this coming?


- Peter

[David Kaye]

Post by Peter Lawrence
Never seen such proliferation of such an old file format that had fallen
out of favor several times during its long life only to gain favor and use
in recent times. (Unlike JPEG file format that has never ceased being
popular.)

I always liked GIFs. They're easy to make, have a background masking
property, and the color palette can be set up to favor certain colors to
make it look like the GIF color palette is richer than it is. I think the
unsung hero(es) of the GIF should get some credit for this. Give them some
Compuserve stock or something...

[Thad Floryan]

Post by Peter Lawrence
While CompuServe as originally conceived as an omnibus online community,
information and service provide has gone the way of the Dodo, one of its
creations, the GIF file format (and more specifically, animated GIFs)
have not only NOT gone away, but has been experiencing a remarkable
resurgence during the past several years.
Never seen such proliferation of such an old file format that had fallen
out of favor several times during its long life only to gain favor and
use in recent times. (Unlike JPEG file format that has never ceased
being popular.)
Not too shabby for a very basic 256-bit file format created back in 1987.
Here's a 2012 video from PBS discussing the GIF file format resurgence.
And now in 2014, I think animated GIFs are now even MORE popular than
http://youtu.be/vuxKb5mxM8g
[...]

Animated GIFs have always been effective as short videos and as simple
attention-getters for web sites.

Here's one reason they are becoming more popular (noting there are many
animated GIFs on that website):

http://www.girlsinyogapants.com/gif-highlights-of-an-aerobics-class/

FWIW, here are two (of many) astronomy-related animated GIFs I created.
The asteroid GIF shows the distribution of asteroids in our solar system
moving back and forth from a polar to ecliptic view. The solar system
GIF runs from 2006 to July 1, 2035, spanning a few days more than one
solar orbit by Saturn. Give the asteroid GIF a few seconds to begin --
it has many frames. These display fine in Firefox as I just checked:

Loading Image... 1.5MB

Loading Image... 783kB

Thad

[Eli the Bearded]

Post by Peter Lawrence
Never seen such proliferation of such an old file format that had fallen out
of favor several times during its long life only to gain favor and use in
recent times. (Unlike JPEG file format that has never ceased being popular.)

Did gifs ever go away? There was a bit of a backlash when there was that
patent problem, but it seems like they have been simmering for years.

Post by Peter Lawrence
Did anyone see this coming?

http://theoatmeal.com/pl/state_web_winter_2012/animated_gifs

Elijah
------
recently recompiled gifsicle

[sms]

Post by Peter Lawrence
While CompuServe as originally conceived as an omnibus online community,
information and service provide has gone the way of the Dodo, one of its
creations, the GIF file format (and more specifically, animated GIFs)
have not only NOT gone away, but has been experiencing a remarkable
resurgence during the past several years.
Never seen such proliferation of such an old file format that had fallen
out of favor several times during its long life only to gain favor and
use in recent times. (Unlike JPEG file format that has never ceased
being popular.)
Not too shabby for a very basic 256-bit file format created back in 1987.
Here's a 2012 video from PBS discussing the GIF file format resurgence.
And now in 2014, I think animated GIFs are now even MORE popular than
http://youtu.be/vuxKb5mxM8g
Did anyone see this coming?

The whole world....
<Loading Image...>