Imgur adds chat so you never have to leave the meme factory

A long-awaited feature has finally made it into the mobile versions of content discovery site/meme emporium Imgur. In a blog post today, the Imgur team announced that chat, messaging and notifications are now available on the gif-heavy social network, while the messaging features of its desktop site are getting an overhaul as well.

Chat works pretty much as you'd expect from any number of social networks: you can send GIFs, post links, emoji and plain old text to other imgur users from their profile, a comment link, the share icon or the chat tab in the Imgur app. Although Imgur's community manager Sarah Schaff told TechCrunch that the site's 150 million users form a close-knit and generally positive community, they've also gone ahead and built in the ability to block users as a standard social media safety feature. On the flip side, you can now follow other Imgur users by tapping the "+" sign on their profile, which will give you a notification anytime that user hits the Most Viral section of the site.

Unlike Twitter or Instagram, you can't see who other users follow and there are no Follower/Following counts anywhere. You can, however, use the latest version of the iOS or Android app to update account info and tweak your public bio.