In addition to reaction buttons that let you say, “Like” or “Wow!” or “Angry,” Facebook will start testing GIF search in its mobile app next week. For a while, the service has allowed animated GIFs to be displayed in site comments, but now the service is trying out a button on mobile that will let users search popular image repositories like Giphy.
Facebook told TechCrunch: “Everyone loves a good GIF and we know that people want to be able to use them in comments. So we’re about to start testing the ability to add GIFs to comments and we’ll share more when we can, but for now we repeat that this is just a test.”
On the one hand, sure, every popular app does this now. On the other hand, adding this feature is a very easy way to turn a comment thread from a normally terrible, textual experience into a GIF-laden war zone that not only lets people outsource their emotions to an SNL sketch but also makes your browser chug. Though, I guess your feed might already be full of cooking tutorials and freebooted LAD Bible videos, so maybe we’re already scraping the bottom of the content barrel.
Anyway, maybe that will appear in your mobile app next week. Just a heads up.
