Vine, Twitter's 6 second video platform, will be shutting down its service in the coming months. Twitter revealed the shocking news this past Thursday with a press release that took the form of a heartfelt letter to Vine users.
What was so Special About Vine, Anyway?
Vine began as a platform for sharing small moments over video. Like tweets but with audio, Vine's videos were just short enough to share a sentence, capture a smile or show stunt performed in a backyard. Vine was unique at the time because it was developed to be used with mobile devices. This was unlike YouTube, which was a largely desktop-oriented service.
This idea, that Vine would become a commonplace service for sending messages and sharing mundane information with friends and followers, never really took off. Perhaps six seconds is just too short of a time span, or maybe the platform wasn't set up for this type of use.
Instead, Vine became a platform for sharing artful, unique videos that were entertaining, quirky and frankly, just odd. To get a sense of what this means, how unusual Vines could be, take a look at the compilation video of Ian Padgeham's Vines below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo5NufFLoNQ
Padgeham, a member of Twitter's marketing team in 2012, started off creating Vines to explore the potential of the medium, but eventually quit his job with Twitter to make Vines full time. Padgeham appreciated the 6 second time limit and liked the way the platform forced him to think differently about storytelling. Apparently, Padgeham wasn't the only person who felt this way. Just a few years ago, Vine was so popular that major companies were seeking to promote their brands through Vine's service.
So What Happened?
Most of the great Vine producers have since moved to other platforms. With the rise in popularity of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat's video services, Vine has quickly become an oddity of the past. The final nail in the coffin may have been Twitter's own in-house video service, which launched just last year. The Twitter video service also imposes a time limit on the videos posted to its website, however, that time limit is set at 30 seconds instead of 6.
The world has moved on from Vine. This quick rise and fall is a reminder of the way technology changes rapidly in modern society. (remember the Palm Pilot?) Even so, Vine's influence over the social media world will endure. People who found an audience on Vine are still active on other platforms and on other social media sites. Celebrities have risen. Record deals have been made.
What Happens to the Vines?
Vine has reported that nothing will happen to the app, website or Vines just yet. Vine will keep everyone posted about coming changes. At this stage of the game, with many of the Vine users already safely producing content on other services, Vine's loss will not be mourned as much as you might think.
The rise and fall of Vine is like an object lesson. Nothing lasts forever, especially not in the world of social media. For more information about the changing Internet world, check back with us at our blog. We'll help you stay up to date on the world of mass media, online video sharing, marketing and more.
