Might X be seeking to carry again GIF profile pictures within the app?
Twitter, now X, did as soon as provide this as an choice (kind of), and a few customers do nonetheless have shifting profile pictures in consequence. However the capability to truly add a GIF as your X avatar has been unavailable, in any kind, for greater than a decade.
However that may very well be about to vary.
In accordance with a brand new publish from X engineer Andrea Conway, the X workforce is not less than discussing the choice of bringing again animated profile pictures.
gif profile pics (they’d be elective obvs)
— Andrea Conway (@ehikian) November 1, 2023
It’s solely a ballot for now, however Conway has shared numerous insights on coming X options during the last 12 months, and all of them have ended up being rolled out at some stage. So it does appear doubtless that that is on the product workforce’s radar, although some customers are fairly against the choice.
To make clear, X/Twitter has by no means formally enabled customers to add GIFs for his or her profile picture, however there was, at one stage, a workaround that enabled customers to add a GIF inside sure dimensions that will then work as an animated avatar in-stream.
Former Twitter chief Dick Costolo apparently oversaw the closure of this loophole again in 2012, making it not possible to add GIFs, however customers that had already accomplished so had been in a position to hold them. Which is why, from time to time, you come throughout an animated profile picture, although you’ll be able to’t really add one your self.
Some customers declare that it’s too distracting, whereas it could additionally pose issues for display screen readers and different accessibility instruments. However there may very well be a variation of this the place customers can add an animation to their profile picture, when a customer hovers over the image possibly, or faucets via to their profile particularly.
Or it may go full LinkedIn, and add video intros on profiles (which LinkedIn eliminated as an choice earlier this year)
I imply, Elon is eager to tackle LinkedIn within the job stakes, so possibly?
It looks like a minor consideration, but it surely may have an effect, and it may very well be coming someday quickly.
Additionally value noting, app researcher Jane Manchun Wong famous that X was working on re-adding GIFs as a profile image option in December last year. So it has been not less than into consideration for a while.
