'New York Times' Runs GIF-Like Video on Its Home Page

By Lauren Indvik2013-05-06 19:48:29 UTC

Visitors to the NYTimes.com Monday afternoon were treated to something slightly unusual: Instead of a large photograph or even a video, the Times embedded side-by-side looping, animated images at the top of its homepage. Both images are embedded in an .mp4 video file, but look like animated GIFs.

The left animation features a jellyfish known as Phacellophora camtschatica, filmed near the Washington coastline. To the right appears a rotating glass model of another jellyfish species, Cotylorhiza borbonica, frequently found in the Mediterranean. They appear above the headline of a story, "In Pursuit of an Underwater Menagerie," about one filmmaker's quest to document rare, underwater invertebrates.

So far as we're aware, this is the first time the Times has run an animated GIF (or, technically, a looping video) on its homepage. Animated GIFs have, however, been used to illustrate NYTimes.com stories before, including this profile of brewer and restauranteer Sam Calagione. Others newsrooms have been using them for a variety of purposes. Last month, SB Nation used animated GIFs in lieu of video for its coverage of The Masters golf tournament in Atlanta.

Update: A Times spokesperson says GIFs and cinemagraphs have previously appeared on the NYTimes.com homepage.

Screenshot via the NYTimes.com

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