Twitter shows off ‘ScratchReel’ GIFs you can rewind

Here’s something new for you Twitter fans: you can now rewind certain kinds of GIFs.

Twitter today tweeted out something it called a ‘ScratchReel,’ which allows you to advance through by hovering your mouse over an image. On mobile, you just tap and drag.

It doesn’t work on the embed, but you can click through to try it out yourself on the Web or on your mobile device.

Spotted a ScratchReel yet? Scrub back & forth to help the @WSL surfer escape the tube!

⏪?⏩

Only on Twitter, dude. pic.twitter.com/Ajh8Rmjz7W

— Twitter (@Twitter) November 12, 2015

Doing some digging, there’s a Twitter account by the same name which retweeted the above post. It only has 62 followers, but its description says:

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

ScratchReels are GIFs that can be scrubbed using a finger or a mouse cursor. Available now for all @SnappyTV Publishers.

Snappy TV’s account says it’s  “the quickest way for media companies and brands to create and share videos, GIFs and photos from TV and live web streams.” Turns out Twitter bought them back in 2014 in a bid to woo broadcasters.

We hadn’t heard much of SnappyTV since the purchase, so it’s nice to see something come out of the deal. We don’t know if the feature will be coming to all GIFs on the platform, however. That’s a shame, as we think it’s pretty neat.

We’ve contacted Twitter for more information and will update this post if we hear back.

Update: This post previously referred to SnappyTV as a third party company, which it’s not. The Verge noted they were bought by Twitter last year, so this post has been updated to reflect that.

➤ @Twitter