Show HN: We made a .gif website for science ...and a few laughs

[stevievee]

My brother and I made a ".gif" website as a summer side project. Before you quip "thanks, the internet needed another one of those", let me explain.

We love gifs. The file-type has been around forever and the funny ones guarantee a chuckle or two. We often email or text each other gifs that convey the perfect emotion in a conversation. Our gif folders were becoming huge and it was becoming difficult to find the ones we were looking for.

There is nothing ground-breaking or seriously innovative about the project, however it did help us learn a whole lot. We found a problem we know pretty well and we set out to solve it while learning as much as possible.

My brother is in a computer-related undergraduate program but his exposure to web programming is limited (non-existent). He had his own set of goals. I wanted to try Amazon Web Services (AWS) for the first time and tinker with multiple APIs, so I had my own set own of goals. Both of us have jobs unrelated to web-development.

Just thought I'd share the site with you fine folks. Feel free to provide feedback (although we don't plan on working on it too much in the future) and share your side-projects where you solved a small problem for yourself.

Fun fact: "GIF" is supposedly pronounced as "JIF" ...like the peanut butter brand.

Link: http://gifpost.me

[padobson]

I actually like this idea. Don't just let it become Vaporware. There's probably others like it, but this could actually be useful to various online communities where conversations like the ones with your brother take place.

[stevievee]

Thanks for the response! I agree, the last thing we want is for it to become "vaporware". We will do everything we can to support it... however it is a side-project so we don't want to make any promises :)

There are certainly others like it but we've implemented a few features differently which we hope users will appreciate. With regard to communities, that is the main reason we have not implemented any "commenting" or "following" system - its usage is open for adoption by any network.

[ffumarola]

So, me and all my coworkers are enjoying this thoroughly :)

Great layout, guess you would look for it to be ad supported? I would like this better than imgur for gifs.

[stevievee]

Thanks for the comment and we are super glad you're enjoying it! Unfortunately, I can't imagine any other model sustaining something like this. Right now the costs are negligible so there won't be ads any time soon :)

[xackpot]

Cool.. I spent half an hour there. I think until the users are engaged you don't need to worry about design. And by the way, the design is good too.

[stevievee]

Haha yea it's definitely a time-waster. Thanks for checking it out.