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{{Short description|American video hosting company}}

factoids

| headquarters = Edmonton, Alberta, Canada| area_served = | key_people =| industry =| products = | brands = | services = Create, discover, and share GIFs and short videos| owner = Snap Incweblink}} ({{Webarchiveweblink>date=September 1, 2023}})| num_users = 220 million MAU| language = English, German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Polish, Russian, Korean, Japanese| current_status = Defunct}}Gfycat ({{IPAc-en|'|dʒ|ɪ|f|iː|ˌ|k|æ|t}} {{respell|JIFEE-cat}})WEB,weblink About {{!, Gfycat|website=Gfycat.com|accessdate=18 Sep 2019|archive-date=13 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201113094010weblink|url-status=live}} was a user-generated short video hosting company founded by Richard Rabbat, Dan McEleney, and Jeff Harris.

History

Founded in 2013 in Edmonton, Canada, Gfycat was among the first web services to offer video encoding of GIFs. It was incorporated in the United States in 2015, and raised $10 million in a 2016 seed funding round.WEB,weblink Gfycat raises $10 million to help creatives fire up the memes, Kolodny, Lora, TechCrunch, October 12, 2016, September 22, 2016, February 16, 2019,weblink live, Gfycat offered a web platform for uploading and hosting short video content, as well as an iMessage app,WEB,weblink Gfycat Loops - Product Hunt, Product Hunt, 13 September 2016, en-US, October 12, 2016, October 13, 2016,weblink live, WEB,weblink Gfycat brings its higher quality GIFs and DIY creation tools to iMessage, Perez, Sarah, TechCrunch, November 25, 2016, October 28, 2016, October 29, 2016,weblink live, an Android app,WEB,weblink Gfycat launches mobile GIF creator for Android, VentureBeat, 12 December 2016, 2017-02-17, 2016-12-13,weblink live, and the GIF Brewery macOS application for GIF and video creation.WEB,weblink Gfycat snaps up Mac app GIF Brewery to expand its GIF creation capabilities to the desktop, Perez, Sarah, TechCrunch, November 25, 2016, November 2, 2016, November 3, 2016,weblink live, It also had integrations with Reddit,NEWS,weblink Gfycat's new Reddit bot supplies your dancing cat images on demand, 2017-04-13, Digital Trends, 2017-10-16, en-US, 2017-10-17,weblink live, the messaging app Tango,NEWS,weblink Tango now lets you post GIFs from the largest user-generated database in the world, 2017-02-14, The Daily Dot, 2017-02-25, en, 2018-09-21,weblink live, Microsoft Outlook,NEWS,weblink Microsoft Outlook for Android now supports add-ins like Evernote and Trello, The Verge, 2017-10-16, 2017-10-17,weblink live, Skype,NEWS,weblink Skype's Snapchat-inspired makeover puts the camera a swipe away, adds stories, Perez, Sarah, TechCrunch, 2017-10-16, en, 2020-09-24,weblink live, and WordPress,WEB,weblink Gfycat for WordPress, WordPress.org, en-US, 2017-10-16, 2017-10-17,weblink live, among others. It was a finalist for the 2016 Advertising Age Creativity Awards in the "Startup to Watch" category.NEWS,weblink See the Finalists for Ad Age's Creativity Awards, 2017-10-16, en, 2021-01-24,weblink live, In 2016, Gfycat ranked within the top 57 websites in the U.S by traffic,WEB,weblink Top Sites in United States - Alexa, www.alexa.com, October 12, 2016, April 4, 2009,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20090404101312weblink">weblink dead, with over 130 million monthly active users in 2017.NEWS,weblink Gfycat hits 130M monthly active users as short form video heats up, Lynley, Matthew, TechCrunch, 2017-10-30, en, 2017-10-28,weblink live, NEWS,weblink GIFs are big business for Edmonton's Gfycat start-up, Snowdon, Wallis, CBC News, October 12, 2016, October 6, 2016, October 13, 2016,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20161013083605weblink">weblink live, NEWS,weblink Here's How Gfycat Hopes to Stand Out From Other Social Media Apps, Kokalitcheva, Kia, Fortune, November 25, 2016, November 7, 2016, November 25, 2016,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20161125174621weblink">weblink live, Its users were primarily concentrated in English-speaking countries, with a significant foothold in Europe and Latin America. It supported sixteen languages, including English, French, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian, Japanese, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Korean, and Arabic. Users fell primarily in the 18-35 age range.Gfycat had offices in Edmonton, Alberta and Palo Alto, California.In 2018 Gfycat had an alleged data breach; an estimated 8 million accounts were compromised, and its database was put for sale on the Dream Market.NEWS, Swati Khandelwal,weblink 620 million accounts stolen from 16 hacked websites now for sale on dark web, seller boasts, TheHackerNews, February 18, 2019, February 18, 2019, February 19, 2019,weblink live, In December 2019, Gfycat started redgifs.com for adult content.{{cn|date=May 2024}}In May 2020, Gfycat was acquired by Snap Inc,WEB, Mceleney, Dan, Dan Mceleney post on LinkedIn,weblink 2023-07-04, www.linkedin.com, en, parent company of Snapchat.WEB, Sandle, Paul, 25 April 2022, Meta fights to overturn UK order to sell Giphy,weblink live,weblink 22 September 2022, 19 September 2022, Yahoo Finance, On May 12, 2020, Gfycat banned adult content completely.{{cn|date=February 2024}}On May 18, 2023 the TLS certificate for gfycat.com expired. Problems with uploading had been reported for months prior to the certificate's expiration, with a lack of response from the company's support. On May 22, the TLS certificate was renewed, with a Snap Inc. spokesperson describing it as a "temporary issue", though problems with uploading to the site remained.WEB, Cole, Samantha, 22 May 2023, RIP Gfycat, the First Site To Make Gifs Look Good (UPDATED),weblink Vice, 24 May 2023, On June 30, 2023, Gfycat announced it would discontinue service on September 1, 2023.WEB,weblink Gfycat {{!, Watch and Create GIFs, Videos, Memes|website=Gfycat.com|accessdate=2023-07-02|archive-date=2023-06-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230630233926weblink|url-status=live|quote=After September 1, 2023, all Gfycat content and data will be deleted from gfycat.com}} On September 1, 2023, the website was taken down.

References

{{Reflist|2}}

External links

• {{Official websiteweblink}} ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230901180416weblink|date=September 1, 2023}})
• "Gfycat aims Web giggles at our short attention spans," SF Chronicle
• "Are GIFs the Future of Movie Marketing? 3 Trends That Are Changing the Face of Entertainment," Huffington Post
• "Gfycat hits 130M monthly active users as short form video heats up," Tech Crunch