2011 appears to be the Year of the .gif. What’s that, you say? 1996 was the year of the .gif? Well, this is one trend I’m thrilled to welcome back. Here are 2 .gif-centric social sharing sites that I absolutely love.

3fram.es

3fram.es is a site for sharing stop-motion webcam gifs. The “social” features are very barebones (you can favorite gifs, tag them, and each user’s gifs are available on that user’s profile page), but I still find it to be a very cool idea. It’s always fun to see someone make a series of gifs, fleshing out ideas that they had before. It’s really exciting that the users are able to tell such interesting stories in the span of a few frames. There is a 3fram.es iOS app, and I hope than an Android one is close behind.

3dPorch

I purchased a Nintendo 3DS, and one of the most exciting and fun features of the device is the ability to capture and view 3d pictures. Since nobody else has a 3ds, it was very hard to share them. Startup 3dPorch is a very simply, but powerful platform for sharing 3d photography in a 2d space. The service converts .mpo files into “wobble .gifs,” cyan/red anaglyphs, and stereoscopic jpegs. You don’t need any special glasses to appreciate the wobble gifs, and these are great for sharing with friends. You can also download .mpos of any image on the site.

I’m very excited to see what the users of these sites can accomplish, as they bring their ideas into the fourth and third dimensions, respectively.