On Thursday, October 27th, the company Vine announced that they will be shutting down Vine’s video-sharing service “in the coming months” on Twitter.
Twitter acquired the ownership of Vine in 2012 before the service had even launched in 2013.The news of Vine discontinuing was the same day Twitter announced it would lay off more than 300 workers, or 9% of the company’s global workforce, within the company’s sales, partnerships, and marketing teams.
Vine has struggled to retain its top creators. By July, over half of Vine’s top 9,725 accounts had either deleted their profiles or stopped posting to the platform, according to research by Makerly. “Nothing is happening to the apps, website or your Vines today,” Twitter said in a news release, adding that users will be given a heads-up and be able to download their Vines before the app shuts down for good.
Since 2013, millions of people have turned to Vine to laugh at loops and to witness creativity unfold. Vine began allowing users to record clips using their phones’ front-facing cameras, and usage exploded. In 2014 the 6-second video platform started creating the next generation of celebrities, described by an article posted on The New Yorker.
Twitter will keep up Vine’s website indefinitely. “We think it’s important to still be able to watch all the incredible Vines that have been made,” the company said.
Former executives said that a major competition emerged when Instagram introduced 15-second video clips in June 2013. “Instagram video was the beginning of the end,” one former executive told me. “[Vine] didn’t move fast enough to differentiate,” said Vine Executive. Instagram courted celebrities with longer videos, eventually bumping the limit to a more flexible 60 seconds. Vines didn’t break the 6-second barrier until earlier this year, and its extended videos never caught on. Instagram also began promoting celebrity accounts in its popular “explore” tab, bringing them attention that Vine found difficult to match.
Vine and Twitter released an announcement on their website:
“Nothing is happening to the apps, website or your Vines today. We value you, your Vines, and are going to do this the right way. You’ll be able to access and download your Vines. We’ll be keeping the website online because we think it’s important to still be able to watch all the incredible Vines that have been made. You will be notified before we make any changes to the app or website.
Thank you. Thank you. To all the creators out there — thank you for taking a chance on this app back in the day. To the many team members over the years who made this what it was — thank you for your contributions. And of course, thank you to all of those who came to watch and laugh every day.
What’s next? We’ll be working closely with creators to make sure your questions are answered and will work hard to do this the right way. We’ll be sharing more details on this blog and our Twitter account, and will notify you through the app when we start to change things.”