Something is moving on Twitter

November 27th, 2008 · Comments

Napolean Dynamite

I was going about my daily business today, multi-tasking between my email, calendar, a few documents and spreadsheets, my RSS feed reader, and my Twitter client of choice, TweetDeck, when I noticed something moving on my screen.

It was unusual, it was something I wasn’t use to seeing. A user on Twitter had a large, animated GIF as their avatar. I’d never seen this before, I didn’t think it was possible to use an animated GIF as your profile picture.

I meant no offense to the user when I pointed this out to my friends on Twitter. People replied to me quickly, they even sent a couple of links to other profiles with animated icons. While some were amusing, I am still troubled with this.

I’m concerned because I’m picturing Twitter flooded with animation in the timeline. It would be as cheesy as a Las Vegas strip at night, or worse, a 1997 Geocities page. Cliff Ravenscraft hilariously tweeted that it would be the MySpaceification of Twitter.

Is this a bug, an oversight by Twitter, or have the flood gates of winking similes, dancing Napoleans and numbshuck-wielding Bruce Lees opened? I hope not.

Have you noticed animation popping up on Twitter lately?

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Tags: Twitter

Viewing 14 Comments

Jim 1 month ago 1 point
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I haven't, but I can see what you mean about it becoming extremely annoying if 50 posts in a row all have animation next to them. If that happens though, it'll hopefully be a fad that'll take its course and then run out soon.

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Dave Delaney 1 month ago 1 point
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Thanks Jim.
I was going to include links to the profiles, so you can see what I'm
talking about. I don't want to call anyone out about it though. It's really
up to Twitter not permit animated GIFs, but we'll see what happens.

D

Find me online: www.davemadethat.com
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Blog: blog.davemadethat.com
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CrystalsQuest 1 month ago 1 point
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I noticed this in one of my followers the other day. Admittedly on those tiny little thumbnails, it wasn't a major interruption, but if you've got pics enabled on your twitterstream I imagine you could get a bit annoyed.

Maybe twitter could look at setting a preference option not to allow gifs, like browsers can be set not to display pictures? It'd lose it's appeal as a stand out feature if it meant a whole heap of people would only see the default icon...

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Dave Delaney 1 month ago 1 point
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That's a good suggestion Crystal. Thanks. I wonder if Twitter is
reading this? I hope so.

Cheers,
Dave / www.davemadethat.com

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Josh 1 month ago 1 point
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yep i've noticed it a few times now

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http://phocks.org

Merlene 1 month ago 1 point
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Hey Dave,
I started noticing a few animated avatars on Twitter last week and they've annoyed the twit out of me. I've taken to unfollowing anyone using the animated gifs. It's too hard to look at them. I figure I'll check back on each after a couple of days to see if they've changed to a regular avatar and refollow if they have.

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Dave Delaney 1 month ago 1 point
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Thanks Merlene. I was wondering if people are still seeing them appear, or
if Twitter put a stop to them. Please keep me posted.

Cheers!

Find me online: www.davemadethat.com
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Blog: blog.davemadethat.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/davedelaney

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CrystalsQuest 1 month ago 1 point
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disappeared off my list, but a quick check showed that twitter were having image upload problems, esp with gifs. There are some still up there, and a whole thread of people whinging that theirs didn't work at http://twurl.nl/66tvfr (shortened for convenience) and demanding twitter get them fixed.

@pilchardmusic still has one, but a not-too-annoying version. I'm using him as a litmus test...

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Dave Delaney 1 month ago 1 point
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Thanks interesting. It's strange that some work and some don't, eh? Weird.

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Victor Agreda Jr 4 weeks ago 1 point
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I had thought about using them, as part of my Twitter personality involves (almost daily) changing my avatar. I do see one guy on my list that has some animation... and it is a little annoying. So I'm not gonna do it. Too "MySpace"-ish, heaven help us all.

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http://www.tuaw.com

Dave Delaney 4 weeks ago 1 point
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Ha ha. Ya very MySpaceish.

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TheJennTafur 4 weeks ago 1 point
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Wow, I have not seen this. Something I would think a younger generation would use. But, then people want to express themselves in a variety of ways. I think this may be a problem is you are a company twitter account and you have all this neon flashing avatar that is basically saying, "I AM [insert brand here] and LISTEN to what I saw because it is golden." If you are just a regular joe like me where you are not a company but being you then it may be okay but then you have to consider the people who are trying to impress (if you are trying to impress). I'm not a fan of the animated gif as it was said below, it is "myspaceish" but to me it is inappropriate if you are over the age of 13!! Just my personal opinion!

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Dave Delaney 4 weeks ago 1 point
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and a great opinion at that!
I just don't like the idea of my timeline filled with animated images.

Cheers
Dave

Find me online: www.davemadethat.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davedelaney
Blog: blog.davemadethat.com
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TheJennTafur 4 weeks ago 1 point
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Totally agree and I think it cheapens the effect of what you may be trying to convey to whomever. Now, if you are a professional entertainer who wants to add some magic then maybe but otherwise naah. It would be interesting to see if any of these musicians who are on twitter would consider using the animated gif. Example - MC Hammer [He is on twitter here = http://twitter.com/mchammer]!!

If he had an animated gif of him doing the running man I would DIE laughing but then that is an old image of him. But, you never know.

Something to think about. I don't know. The more I think about the animated gif I think of all the visual artists that I follow? Hmm..possibly? But then again like you I don't want all that flash on my twitter stream especially with me following over 1000 people!

Be good! oxoox

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