It seems like we’re always hearing of a new “word of the year.” Remember back to 2009 when “unfriend” (like on Facebook) was announced by the Oxford American Dictionary as the word of the year? It seems that when a word morphs from a noun into a commonly used verb it catches the attention of academics who follow those kind of things.
This year’s word is interesting because it’s something known to designers and developers for years and now is gaining traction in mainstream culture. You probably already are familiar with JPG, a file format. GIF is also a file format. Photoshop users are probably also familiar with the ability to animate GIF files. Not yet familiar? Then you may want to view the Nyan Cat, one of the most well-known GIF animations on the web.
As a web designer/developer I’ve been using GIF’s for years (example: millrivergroup.net). However, these little files are gaining more visibility and usage on the web because they aren’t FLASH. Last year I wrote about the demise of FLASH (November 10, 2011: Is Flash Dead? The Significance for the Small Business Website). FLASH users beware because the tablet and smart phone revolution is here and they don’t use FLASH! When you want something to move on your website and you want it to be seen on phone and tablet… it’s time for a GIF.
So the move to talking about GIFs as nouns to speaking of GIFing may have caught the attention of the ivory tower intellectuals, but the GIF should be catching the imagination of those who work with the web as a relevant file format to add movement to websites to be seen on current technology.
