Gfycat ( ) was a user-generated short

video hosting An online video platform (OVP) enables users to upload, convert, store, and play back video content on the Internet, often via a private server structured, large-scale system that may generate revenue. Users will generally upload video content vi ...

company founded by Richard Rabbat, Dan McEleney, and Jeff Harris.

History

Founded in 2013 in

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, Gfycat was among the first web services to offer video encoding of GIFs. It was incorporated in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in 2015, and raised $10 million in a 2016

seed funding Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' suggests ...

round. Gfycat offered a web platform for uploading and hosting short video content, as well as an

iMessage iMessage is an instant messaging service developed by Apple Inc. and launched in 2011. iMessage functions exclusively on Apple platforms – including iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and visionOS – as part of Apple ecosystem, Apple's approach t ...

app, an Android app, and the GIF Brewery

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

application for GIF and video creation. It also had integrations with

Reddit Reddit ( ) is an American Proprietary software, proprietary social news news aggregator, aggregation and Internet forum, forum Social media, social media platform. Registered users (commonly referred to as "redditors") submit content to the ...

, the messaging app

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Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft 365 software suites. Primarily popular as an email client for businesses, Outlook also includes functions such as Calendari ...

Skype Skype () was a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for IP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also had instant messaging, file transfer, ...

, and

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, among others. It was a finalist for the 2016

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Creativity Awards in the "Startup to Watch" category. In 2016, Gfycat ranked within the top 57 websites in the U.S by traffic, with over 130 million

monthly active users Active users is a software performance metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular software product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from users or visitors within a relevant range ...

in 2017. 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 Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

and

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. In 2018 Gfycat had an alleged

data breach A data breach, also known as data leakage, is "the unauthorized exposure, disclosure, or loss of personal information". Attackers have a variety of motives, from financial gain to political activism, political repression, and espionage. There ...

; an estimated 8 million accounts were compromised, and its database was put for sale on the Dream Market. In December 2019, Gfycat started redgifs.com for adult content. In May 2020, Gfycat was acquired by

Snap Inc Snap Inc. is an American technology company, founded on September 16, 2011, by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown (Snapchat), Reggie Brown based in Santa Monica, California. The company developed and maintains technological products an ...

, parent company of

Snapchat Snapchat is an American multimedia social media and instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of the app are that pictures and messages, known as "snaps", are usually availa ...

. On May 12, 2020, Gfycat banned adult content completely. 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. On June 30, 2023, Gfycat announced it would discontinue service on September 1, 2023. On September 1, 2023, the website was taken down.

References

External links

* ({{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230901180416/https://gfycat.com/, 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
GIF hosting websites Internet properties established in 2015 Internet properties disestablished in 2023 Online mass media companies of the United States Companies based in Palo Alto, California American companies established in 2015 Former video hosting services