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January 2014

Yahoo updates the Sports app to turn game highlights into GIFs

By Sports app

Yahoo today released a new version of its Sports app that has been redesigned for iOS 7 with a particular focus on GIFs. Yahoo Sports GIFs, which it calls Loops, take short snippets of game highlights and allow users to overlay text. They can then share their creations with the community, with the GIF appearing in a feed on the game’s main results page. “We have a tradition around creativity and empowering Tumblr and Flickr creators,” says Josh Schwarzapel , senior product manager for mobile and emerging products. “We took that mindset and applied it to the sport.”

Buckles are available for professional football, baseball, basketball and hockey, as well as college football and baseball. Yahoo uses technology from its IntoNow acquisition to record highlights from almost any TV sports game, so GIF creators can quickly scan through a game’s play to find the moment they want to highlight. .

Yahoo uses IntoNow’s technology to record highlights of almost any TV play

Loops are the biggest new feature in the Sports app, which Yahoo says is used by millions of people every day. A redesign for iOS 7 gives the app a flatter, more image-heavy look, in line with the company’s other recent redesigns. Player stats now include a prominent photo of the player, for example, and the app pulls gaming articles from the web and places them on the game results page.

The update will likely be good news for app users, although loops seem a little harder to find than they should. If you are not taken directly to the game results screen from a push notification, you must first select the sport, then the game you are looking for, then scroll down to see the GIFs . But it’s a creative step by Yahoo that makes the app more visually appealing — and shows another way the company’s acquisitions have begun to pollinate its app lineup.