We have been keeping a low profile for the past month and have not released anything new, so I decided to write this post and let everyone know what we have in store for WeGIF, and what we have been up to.
This month we are working hard on two big tasks, the first being a complete redesign of WeGIF.com. WeGIF has been in a closed beta for a few months, and now we have a much better idea of how people like interacting with the site.
The current layout was meant to just make the site functional and to get the ball rolling. The new design is much more attractive and easy to use. We’ve reorganized some of the sections to make the experience of creating and browsing for animations easier and more entertaining.
Also with the release of the new design, we are making our views public so if you’re currently using the site you will be able to send links to your friends, and they will be able to view your animations without having to sign up for an account first. This is really important and is probably our first step in sharing WeGIF with the world.
The second big thing we’re addressing is the back end infrastructure of WeGIF. We are in the middle of moving to Amazon Web Services, which offers cloud computing and storage. This is also very important since when this move is complete, we will be able to accommodate a lot more users on the site, and we will be sending out invites to everybody on the waiting list.
Feature-wise we have a lot of ideas, and plan on releasing a few new things along with the new version of WeGIF next month. One of the features I’m most excited about is the ability to pick an animated gif (or flash) to be your status avatar. Think setting an away message on IM, or status message on a social networking site that tells the world what you’re doing or how you’re feeling, except that you can now do it with an animation right from WeGIF.
There may be some down time on the site when we make some of these changes and we will notify everyone a few days ahead of time.