Twitter’s Scratch Reels are just cool GIFs

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via Giphy
via Giphy
via Giphy

The humble GIF has been with us for the last 28 years and was made cool later on by Tumblr and sites like Giphy. They were later on adopted by Facebook ,Twitter and the likes. Twitter has debuted a cool GIF  where you interact with it just like how you can rewind or skip ahead on a video.

This is all thanks to Snappy TV, the startup that joined the Twitter family back in 2012 that deals with video manipulation and distribution. The new GIFS, now termed as Scratch Reels, were actually launched last year but now they have been launched for Twitter’s mobile apps (iOS and Android) and also on Twitter.com.

The thing about it is that you can actually manipulate the various frames in the GIF frame by frame on your touchscreen by dragging your finger back and forth and on twitter.com by using your mouse. “Consumers love slowing down instant replays or scratching dancers quickly back and forth. It lets them connect with the GIF in a personal way,” Snappy TV explains the feature in their blog.

There is a way to identify these Scratch Reels, they  have a  icon that is located at the bottom left corner of the GIF. At the moment, it seems they are only available to a handful of users and it is unclear if it will be rolled out to everyone. This feature however will work great with advertisers like fashion houses or sport teams in spicing up their campaigns on Twitter by letting people interact better with the product