Facebook to Buy Giphy for $400 Million

Dan Primack, Kia Kokalitcheva, and Sara Fischer, reporting for Axios:

Facebook has agreed to buy Giphy, the popular platform of sharable animated images, Axios has learned from multiple sources. The total deal value is around $400 million. […] Giphy is expected to retain its own branding, with its primary integration to come via Facebook’s Instagram platform.

Matthew Panzarino:

There are two reasons Facebook buys a consumer company. Eyeballs or data.

Of course Giphy is going to retain its own brand. If they renamed it to “Facebook Tracking Pixels”, usage might drop off. Think about all the messaging apps that don’t offer Facebook integration for security/privacy reasons (not to mention not wanting to have their apps crash on launch when Facebook pushes a buggy update), where Giphy images appear. You know, like Apple’s Messages. Well, now Facebook has tracking pixels in them.

★ Friday, 15 May 2020