Google now owns GIF platform and search engine Tenor

Here at Memeburn, we love a good GIF. And it seems Google does too.

The company on Tuesday announced its purchase of GIF platform Tenor — the service that doles out moving images to users on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Google’s GBoard keyboard app, and others.

Google’s reason behind the purchase — of which the sum remains undisclosed — seems entrenched in improving Google Images, especially as “mobile devices [have] changed the way people search.”

“Most people now use Google Images to find more information about a topic, and to help them communicate and express themselves — case in point, we see millions of searches for GIFs every day,” writes Cathy Edwards, Google Images’ director of engineering.

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But Google will not dissolve Tenor into its Images product.

“Tenor will continue to operate as a separate brand, and we’re looking forward to investing in their technology and relationships with content and API partners,” adds Edwards.

Tenor’s milestones

Founded in 2014, the GIF platform was initially known as Riffsy. Its pilot offering was a GIF keyboard, but it has since grown into a competitor to the globe’s other large moving picture search engine Giphy.

In 2017, it broke the 12-billion searches milestone, racking up 300-million users during the year too.

The company also recorded “more than four billion distinct search terms, from ‘lol’ to ‘high five,'” it adds in its own acquisition statement, penned by CEO David McIntosh.

“We look forward to the next leg of our journey with Google as we grow Tenor to help anyone with a mobile device visually express the full range of human emotion,” he adds.

Feature image: Tenor