Vine (service)
Vine was an American short-form video hosting service where users could share up to 10-minute-long looping video clips. It was originally launched on January 24, 2013, by Vine Labs, Inc and Big Human.[1] Bought by Twitter, Inc. in 2012 before its launch, the service was shut down on January 17, 2017,[2] and the app was discontinued a few months later.[3]
Original author(s)
Videos published on Vine's social network could also be shared on different social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. The Vine app was also used to browse videos, along with a group of videos that were uploaded by theme, and hoping that users could "trend" videos. Vine competed with other social media services such as Instagram and Snapchat. By December 2015, Vine had over 200 million active users.[4]
On October 27, 2016, Twitter announced that it would disable all uploads, but that viewing and download would continue to work.[5][6] On January 20, 2017, Twitter launched an online archive of every Vine video that had ever been published.[7] The archive was officially discontinued in April 2019.[8] Vine's co-founder Dom Hofmann created a successor not affiliated with Twitter,[9] which launched on January 24, 2020, as Byte; was renamed twice; and was discontinued on May 3, 2023.
History[edit]
Vine was founded by Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov, and Colin Kroll in June 2012. The company was acquired by Twitter in October 2012 for a reported $30 million.[10][11] Vine launched on January 24, 2013,[12][13] as a free app for iOS devices. An Android version was released on June 2, 2013.[14] On November 12, 2013, the application was released for Windows Phone.[15] In a couple of months, Vine became the most used video sharing application in the market, even with low adoption of the app.[16] On April 9, 2013, Vine became the most downloaded free app within the iOS App Store[17] and on May 1, 2014, Vine launched the web version of the service to explore videos.[18]
In July 2014, Vine updated its app with a new "loop count", meaning every time someone watched a vine, a number on top of the video would appear showing how many times it was viewed. The "loop count" also included views from vines that were embedded onto other websites.[19][20] On October 14, 2014, an Xbox One version was released allowing Xbox Live members to watch the looping videos.[21]
On October 27, 2016, Vine announced that Twitter would be discontinuing the Vine mobile app. Vine said users of the service would be notified before any changes to the app or website were made. The company also stated that the website and the app would still be available for users to view and download Vines, but users would no longer be able to post.[22]
The discontinuation of Vine came as many different competing platforms began to introduce their own equivalents to Vine's short-form video approach. Platforms such as Instagram began to introduce their own takes on the short video angle, such as Instagram Video where users were able to upload 15-second videos to their profiles.
Marketers leaving the platform was also a large part of the decision by Twitter to discontinue Vine. Many monetary sources began to move to longer short video platforms, and with them followed many popular Vine creators. Since the start of 2016, more than half of Vine users with more than 15,000 followers had ceased uploading or had deleted their accounts to move on to other platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat.[23]
On December 16, 2016, it was announced that the Vine mobile app would remain operational as a standalone service, allowing users to publish their videos directly to Twitter instead of Vine; the Vine community website would shut down in January.[24] On January 17, 2017, the app was renamed to "Vine Camera".[25] Although the app still enabled users to record six-second videos, they could only be shared on Twitter or saved on a camera roll.[26][27] The release of the Vine Camera was met with poor reviews on both the Android and iOS App Stores.[28] On January 20, 2017, Twitter launched an Internet archive of all Vine videos, allowing people to continue watching previously filmed Vine videos[29] however in 2019 this was also removed by Twitter.[8]
The Verge reported that the closure of Vine led many of its most notable users, such as Kurtis Conner, David Dobrik, Danny Gonzalez, Drew Gooden, Liza Koshy, Shawn Mendes, Jake Paul, Logan Paul, and Lele Pons, to move to other video-sharing platforms.[30]
In November 2018, co-founder Dom Hoffman announced the upcoming successor to Vine, Byte, also previously known as V2; it was slated to come out in spring 2019.[31] The Byte application launched publicly a year later on January 24, 2020. In 2021, Vine has announced that they will discontinue their app.
After Elon Musk completed his purchase of social media company Twitter, he posted a poll on Twitter on October 30, 2022, whether to "Bring back Vine?".[32] It has received over 4.9 million votes, with the majority (69.6%) being in favor.[33] An Axios article published on October 31, 2022, stated that Musk purportedly requested Twitter engineers work on rebooting Vine.[34]
On April 3, 2024, Vine's website was shut down, resulting in a "504 Gateway Time-out" when the website is visited.[35]
As of April 17, 2024, Elon Musk has posted on 𝕏 with the polling question "Bring back Vine?".
Reception[edit]
A BBC review described collections of Vine videos as "mesmerizing", like "[watching a] bewildering carousel of six-second slices of ordinary life [roll] past."[45]
An article by The New Yorker investigated the impact of online video platforms in creating a new generation of celebrities, stating: "A Vine's blink-quick transience, combined with its endless looping, simultaneously squeezes time and stretches it."[64] While a given loop's brevity seems to "squeeze time", repeated viewings allow users to absorb rich detail, thereby subjectively "stretching time."
Many brands used the service as a free platform for advertising their products, showing off exclusive content and creating contests to keep consumers interested in the brand. Cadbury UK had used their profile to show off new confectionaries that were in the making and created a contest around giving out samples to keep people coming back to the chocolate company. Many local and chain bookstores used the site to show off new books. Other companies developed a more personal connection with consumers using their six-second videos. This also allowed fans of different brands to show off their loyalty to the brand and in turn advertised the brand from a different perspective, this included makeup videos and the like.[65]
Soon after its launch, Vine faced criticism for how it handled pornography; while porn is not forbidden by Twitter's guidelines,[66] one sexually explicit clip was accidentally featured as an "Editor's Pick" in the Vine app as a result of "human error".[67] Because pornography violates Apple's terms of service,[68] the app's rating was changed to 17+ in February 2013 following a request by Apple.[69] Vine was listed among Time's '50 Best Android Apps for 2013'.[70]
Competitors[edit]
Instagram added 15-second video sharing in June 2013. Since then, the video functionality expanded with additional features: widescreen videos, 60-second videos, and up to 10 minutes of video in a multi-video post. As with Vine, Instagram videos loop and have no playback controls by default. Snapchat added 10-second video sharing in December 2012.
YouTube launched a GIF creator in 2014.[71] This tool allows up to six seconds of any supported YouTube video to be converted to a GIF.[72] Sign-ups for the GIF beta are now discontinued.[73] YouTube later began catering to those who create primarily shorter videos with its YouTube Shorts platform.
TikTok (called Douyin in China) was created a few months before the discontinuation of Vine. Its current edition is the result of the merger of the original TikTok app with Musical.ly, which was founded in 2014 and became popular in 2015.[74] TikTok is similar to Vine in that it is a simple short video platform with the added option of Duet, meaning that two different TikTok creators may collaborate at different times to create a final video; The Verge called it "the closest thing we'll get to having Vine back".[75] TikTok is not much younger than Vine, as its predecessor Musical.ly was introduced only a year after Vine's inception, but it exploded in popularity in the late 2010s after Vine was shut down.[76]
