Google+ profile photos now support animated GIFs

Google has rolled out an interesting update to its Google+, allowing users of the social networking service to have GIF profile pictures. The update comes close on the heels of the search engine giant making it easier to find GIFs within Google Image search.

"Our gif to you. You can now use animated gifs for your profile photo," the official Google+ account announced on Monday.

The animated GIFs profile pics work on both Google+'s desktop and mobile views. However, the profile GIFs are only visible on profile pages. Google also provides a link directing users to a Google search on “How to make a GIF” in an attempt to encourage users to have one such animated image of their own.

Google's adoption of the GIFs is likely to prompt rival Facebook to add support for the format or come up with something similar. It may be recalled Twitter had started blocking animated GIFs from user profile images last year. However, the micro-blogging site later came up with Vine, a short-video sharing service.

Source: Google+