5 Things to Know About the New Feature — Twitter GIF Search

GIFs are great, and now you can add them to your posts more easily.

A new dedicated GIF button will appear at the bottom of the section where users compose a tweet or direct message.

The new feature is rolled out globally for the Twitter mobile app on both Android and iOS operating systems.

Your Twitter feed is about to get a whole lot more fun.

GIFs have been around since the earliest days of the Internet, but there’s something special about those silent, looping clips that we just can’t ignore.

The animated images will be searchable via keywords or by browsing categories from within the status-update window.

The GIFs are provided by GIPHY and Riffsy.

Until now, users had the option of sharing GIFs on Twitter from giphy.com and riffsy.com or their respective apps. Users will now be able to capture and share videos in Direct Messages.

A Twitter spokeswoman said rollout of the GIF search began on Wednesday and would become available to everyone.

Twitter says we shared over 100 million GIFs on the platform in 2015, so the button is a natural fit. Tech publicist Drew Olanoff (@drew) tweeted, “where’s my @twitter gif button @jack?!?!?!” So expect to see other features and changes in the coming months as Twitter aims to hold onto and grow its user base.

Twitter’s move makes it on of the latest companies or services to embrace native GIF support.