Animated GIFs for XStreet?

I sell animations, and I'm wondering whether I should be advertising with animated GIFs on XStreet, rather than the still photos I use now. Is this a good idea, or does it take too much bandwidth or otherwise annoy customers? Should I put the animation in the main display window or just in the body of the ad?

If it is a good idea, how do I go about making them -- is it best to try to convert a FRAPS video or a series of stills? And if video is the best way, is there a way I can turn off the SL interface, or should I just crop the video in Premiere?

Many thanks in advance.

I use them in a few cases where I think they make sense. It makes a lot of sense for animated objects. Perhaps make the animated gif one of the alternative images instead of the primary one if it is made with many images.





I have used both GraphicConverter and Photoshop Elements to make animated gifs. There are probably numerous other ways to do it.

control-alt-F1 turns off the user interface. I've used ImageReady (came with Adobe Creative Suite) to make GIFs. I found the previews that SLX creates from the GIFs I prepared don't themselves animate, though I've seen some animated previews so I know it's possible.

Just be aware that image quality degrades significantly at the resolutions needed and thumbnailing for the list size images makes it worse.

Thanks for the replies. Hmm, the tenor of your responses suggests it may not be worth the bother. I've seen a couple animated GIFs on XStreet that looked pretty good, but also a bunch that looked amateurish. My animations are generally 30-second loops, so if a GIF couldn't run that long, I might just skip it.

Thinking about this more: is a better alternative a link to a YouTube video of an animation? I don't think we can embed YouTube videos, but it might still be helpful to shoppers. What do you all think?