If you think we're living in a GIF-obsessed world, well, you ain't seen nothing yet. In yet another attempt to bring GIF-making to the masses, YouTube has debuted an automatic GIF creator tool available on a select group of videos. Creating a GIF isn't quite akin to atom-splitting, but users would often have to use an external website when making them with YouTube videos.
Now, it can all be done in-house. How does one go about crafting their own graphics interchange format (yes, that's what it stands for)? Here's the math:
First, they can only be five seconds long. Additionally, they can only be made using consecutive video footage, which means you can't hop around a clip, picking and choosing your favorite bits. The new tool also (thankfully) features a text overlay option for optimal meme generation — because what would any GIF be without a clever caption to tie it all together?
For now, the feature seems to only be available on PBS Idea Channel, but there's also a sign-up page for users with their own channels who want to get a head start on testing it out. If all goes well, GIFs will be even more ubiquitous than they are now, and frankly, that's a world we want to live in. (The Verge)