GIF which is now widely spread on various websites and applications shows short animations that make repetitive movements. But initially, GIF is a way to display photos.
The history of GIF began when Steve Wilhite started working on GIF in early 1986. At that time, he was a programmer for Compuserve - an online service that allows users to access chat rooms, forums and information such as stock prices.
Sandy Trevor, Wilhite's supervisor at Compuserve, told WIRED that he wanted to solve two problems. First Compuserve requires a graphic format that works on all computers.
At that time the PC market was divided into several companies including Apple, Atari, Commodore, IBM and Tandy, each of which had its own way of displaying graphics.
Compuserve had used other graphic formats in that era, such as NAPLPS, but Trevor considered it too complicated to apply. As a result he commissioned Wilhite to create a simple format that could work on any machine.
The second wish, Trevor wants Wilhite to create technology that can quickly display sharp images even on slow connections.
"In the 80s, 1200 baud was high-speed. Many people only have 300 baud modems, "Trevor said.
The average broadband connection in the United States is 40,000 times faster than a fast 1200 baud connection, so Compuserve requires very small files.
Another major web image format, JPEG, was being developed at the time. However, the format is more suitable for photos and other images that contain high amounts of detail and will not experience slight distortion.
Meanwhile, Compuserve requires a format to display stock prices, weather maps and other charts. As a result Wilhite decided to base GIF on a lossless compression protocol called Lempel-Ziv-Welch, or LZW.
Wilhite completed the first version of GIF in May 1987, and Compuserve began using the format the following month. This was recorded two years before Sir Tim Berners Lee announced his World Wide Web project and six years before the Mosiac browser made the web accessible to users, to make GIF as it is today.
GIF is fairly perfect for displaying logos, line art, and website diagrams like Wilhite's first developed format. Because GIF images are transparent, it allows website designers to make more complex layouts.
Wilhite himself has the foresight to make his GIF expandable so that other developers are able to add other types of information to the GIF. This allowed the team at the Netscape browser to create an animated GIF standard in 1995.
"I'm not asking Steve to add as much as possible to his abilities, but I'm happy to do it," Trevor said.
Shortly after, GIF adorned almost all websites. "Dancing Baby" became one of the first viral videos on the web. The 7-Up mascot who danced "Cool Spot" also made the first viral GIF.
Unfortunately the GIF firm reaps controversial patent controversy. In 1994, IT giant Unisys claimed to have the LZW protocol that Wilhite used in the GIF specification. The company threatened to sue anyone who makes software that can make or read GIFs without paying a license until finally Unisys's LZW patent expires in 2006.
Even so, the GIF format still survives on web forums and sites like 4chan, Reddit, and Tumblr. Over time, many people use animation in conversations over the web until GIF becomes a new form of expression.
The rise of smartphones also makes this form of visual communication more attractive to users.
"With GIF you can express a variety of emotions," said David McIntosh, CEO of Tenor.
Unfortunately, various technologies do not escape abuse. GIF, for example, is used to display negative content that is deemed inappropriate by some groups
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