This week, we're looking at a new app called JibJab Messages, an app that enhances your outgoing messages by quickly adding goofy, personalized GIFs.


Some might be familiar with the company behind this app, JibJab Media, from its hit "This Land Is Your Land" viral video satirizing the 2004 presidential elections. Since then, over the past decade, JibJab has made its bread and butter on eCards and other comedic digital paraphernalia.

But seeing as how eCards aren't exactly a daily purchase -- or a hot, growing field of Internet commerce -- JibJab Media decided to look at new options, with the help of FocusLab, LLC.

According to FocusLab's blog, after a company-wide powwow and some focus sessions, the idea came up to unleash JibJab's particular brand of comedy on the exploding field of mobile messaging.

Three months later, JibJab Messages was born.

Don't worry -- despite the name, this isn't yet another messaging app, much less yet another Snapchat clone. It's actually a GIF-creation studio that, in fact, can make messaging on those "older" social media platforms much more robust and fun than even Snapchat's editable media messaging.

Only for iOS at the moment, the app is focused only on helping you create meme-worthy GIFs with your selfie, or anything else you might take a picture of, superimposed.

Using the app is easy. Open it and sign in with Facebook, Twitter or Google+ (use the latter if you want practically no one to see your GIF). If JibJab knows what's good for itself, JibJab Messages will include Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat (if eventually allowed) logins in the future, as well.

After logging in, JibJab gets right to work making your first personalized test GIF. Take a selfie or a picture with your main camera, using the oval outlines provided to frame a face that the app will then paste on to its GIFs.

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