Giphy And Spotify Partnership Will Bring Music To GIFs, Sort Of

Spotify and Giphy, the platform that lets you easily find and share short animated images, have teamed up to combine the two products into one...sort of. The companies are enabling artists to combine their music with GIFs of their performance, but it won't work quite the way it sounds. Rather than a GIF playing music, the images will let users click through straight to the artist's Spotify page.

Spotify announced the new team-up today, stating that artists who have a verified page on GIPHY can now opt to utilize this new feature. With it, artists can link their Spotify pages with the GIFs on their official Giphy page, enabling viewers to click a "Listen on Spotify" button.

The button will only be featured on participating GIFs, so don't expect to find them on every animated image. The participating GIFs will be discoverable both on the Giphy mobile app and through its website. Once you click through the artist's Spotify page, you'll be able to stream their music, of course.

The move appears to be a way to increase listeners and stream counts for musical artists, GIFs of whom can already be found in vast numbers on the Giphy platform. It seems less likely that GIFs may prove to be an effective way for music fans to discover new artists to enjoy, but it could happen.

For its part, Giphy may benefit by drawing in a greater number of musical artists who may view the platform as a way to increase stream counts for their tracks. Users who are already searching for GIFs of the artist may be inclined to click through to the Spotify page and stream some of their latest hits.