A suggestion to improve the handling of animated gifs on Google+

Posted on | August 2, 2011 | 2 Comments

Like many of you I have become a great fan of Google’s new social network implementation Google+. I’ve been cultivating my circles into tailored groups, so I only spam them with what they’re interested in.

My Google+ Profile

Now I’ve had great fun following the likes of Robert Scoble (don’t circle him unless you are prepared to receive a lot of content, some suggest putting him in his own circle), Tom Anderson, Wil Wheaton, and Kevin Rose. Now one area of contention of Google+ is animated GIFs. They were a norm on MySpace, but flattened the first frame on  Facebook. Google+ has now brought them roaring back.

Tom Anderson, affectionately known as MySpace Tom, is one of the users who seems to be using them effectively.

On the flip-side, their has been a notable backlash of the intrusiveness/offensiveness of animated GIFs on this service. I have come up with a simple suggestion which I have submitted to Google+.

My suggestion is as follows:

1. Animated gifs are flattened to first frame, by Google+
2. A play button is overlayed
3. On clicking the play button, the image is replaced with the animated version

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