Imgur to Give GIFs A ‘21st-Century’ MP4 Update

Apparently the issue of a page full of GIFs taking foooooooorever to load is only going to be a problem for the early past of the 21st century …

Imgur, the photo/GIF-sharing file site has decided it is time to convert the .GIF format to MP4 technology — the end result being smaller, faster GIFs. Finally you won’t have to wait for that first one to load all annoyingly slow before it plays like normal.

“Let’s get real, the .GIF format is outdated and is not really that great for the modern web anymore. ” says Imgur founder Alan Schaaf to The Verge. “It was created in 1989, and it wasn’t even created for the purpose of animation. What we’re trying to do is keep that same experience almost intact but just make the technology around it much better.”

The technology will be autoconverted so uploaders to Imgur won’t have to do anything differently. Which is good because the majority of people who make/use GIFs aren’t that clever anyhow. There, I said it.

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