210 How .GIFs Became the Lingua Franca of the Internet

When Stephen Wilhite, the creator of the .GIF image, died last month at the age of 74, millions on the Internet shared their favorite (and earliest-known) looping animations in honor of the influential computer scientist. But how did this highly compressed CompuServe image format from 1987 become the ubiquitous communication method bursting from all of our smartphone keyboards?

Nearly all the coverage of Wilhite's death links back to one interview from 2012. Fernando Alfonso, III, a reporter at The Daily Dot (fine publisher of this very podcast!) tracked down the reclusive Wilhite to discuss the legacy of the .GIF, and why it became so pivotal in the maturation of the Web. Alfonso (now a supervising editor at NPR) explains why .GIFs were invented, why they blossomed with artists of the early Web, how hard it was to make them in the early aughts, and whether we should expect the .GIF to survive the next 10 years.

Read Fernando's piece from 2012: https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/gif-history-steve-wilhite-olia-lialina-interview/

Follow Fernando: https://twitter.com/fernalfonso

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