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Vine was an American short-form video hosting service where users could share six-second-long looping
video clip Video clips refer to mostly short videos, most of the time called memes, which are short videos of silly jokes and funny clips, most of the time coming from movies or any entertainment videos such as YouTube. The term is also used more loosely ...
s. It was originally launched on January 24, 2013 by Vine Labs, Inc., bought by
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
the year before; the service was shut down in October 2016 and the app was discontinued a few months later. Videos published on Vine's
social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods fo ...
could also be shared on different social networking platforms such as
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
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 Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
and Snapchat. By December 2015, Vine had over 200 million active users. On October 27, 2016, Twitter announced that it would disable all uploads, but that viewing and download would continue to work. On January 20, 2017, Twitter launched an Internet archive of every Vine video that had ever been published. The archive was officially discontinued in April 2019. As of 2022, the service was closed and put into an "archival state". Vine's co-founder Dom Hofmann has since created a successor, Huddles, not affiliated with Twitter.


History

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 but was later reformed as Intermedia Labs. Vine launched on January 24, 2013, as a free app for iOS devices. An Android version was released on June 2, 2013. On November 12, 2013, the application was released for
Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design lan ...
. In a couple of months, Vine became the most used video sharing application in the market, even with low adoption of the app. On April 9, 2013, Vine became the most downloaded free app within the
iOS App Store The App Store is an app store platform, developed and maintained by Apple Inc., for mobile apps on its iOS and iPadOS operating systems. The store allows users to browse and download approved apps developed within Apple's iOS Software Dev ...
and on May 1, 2014, Vine launched the web version of the service to explore videos. 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. On October 14, 2014, an
Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
version was released allowing Xbox Live members to watch the looping videos. 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. 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 Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
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 YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
, Instagram and Snapchat. 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. On January 17, 2017, the app was renamed to "Vine Camera". Although the app still enabled users to record six-second videos, they could only be shared on Twitter or saved on a camera roll. The release of the Vine Camera was met with poor reviews on both the Android and iOS App Stores. On January 20, 2017, Twitter launched an Internet archive of all Vine videos, allowing people to continue watching previously filmed Vine videos however in 2019 this was also removed by Twitter. ''
The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media ...
'' reported that the closure of Vine led many of its most notable users, such as
Kurtis Conner Kurtis Matthew Kenneth Conner (born May 4, 1994) is a Canadian comedian, YouTuber, and podcaster. As of December 2022, his main YouTube channel has 4.2 million subscribers with 625 million views, his podcast's YouTube channel has 477,000 subscri ...
,
David Dobrik David Dobrik ( Dávid Julián Dobrík (; ; born July 23, 1996)) is a Slovak Internet personality. He found early success on the video-sharing platform Vine, before starting his vlog on YouTube in 2015. In 2019, he co-founded the photography app ...
, Danny Gonzalez, Drew Gooden, Liza Koshy, Shawn Mendes,
Jake Paul Jake Joseph Paul (born January 17, 1997) is an American media personality and professional boxer. He initially rose to fame on Vine, before playing the role of Dirk Mann on the Disney Channel series ''Bizaardvark'' for two seasons. Throughout ...
, Logan Paul, and Lele Pons, to move to other video-sharing platforms. In November 2018, co-founder Dom Hoffman announced the upcoming successor to Vine,
Byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...
, also previously known as V2; it was slated to come out in spring 2019. The Byte application launched publicly a year later on January 24, 2020. After
Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The B ...
completed his purchase of social media company
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
, he posted a poll on Twitter on October 30, 2022 whether to "Bring back Vine?". It has received over 4.9 million votes, with the majority (69.6%) being in favor. An Axios article published on October 31, 2022, stated that Musk purportedly requested Twitter engineers work on rebooting Vine.


Features

Vine enabled users to record short video clips up to six seconds long while recording through its in-app camera. The camera would record only while the screen was being touched, enabling users to edit on the fly or create stop motion effects. Additional features were added to the app in July 2013; these included grid and ghost image tools for the camera, curated channels (including themed areas and trending topics/users), the ability to "revine" (share again, similar to Twitter's " retweet") videos on a personal stream, and protected posts. In August 2015, Vine introduced Vine Music, whose "Snap to Beat" feature creates perfect infinite music loops. In June 2016, Vine announced that it was experimenting with letting users attach video clips up to 140 seconds.


Vine Kids

In January 2015, Vine launched Vine Kids, an app for iOS that was designed specifically for children aged 7 to 12. It was designed by a group of Vine employees in order to try to create a safer space for younger users to eventually watch content which was deemed appropriate for children. Every video posted to the app was selected by Vine employees to ensure their safety. Vine's Head of Communication and Marketing, Carolyn Penner, noting the features of the app, told CNN that "children can always swipe back and forth on the mobile screen to find new videos, and they can also tap on the screen to produce some sound effects".


Usage

Vine attracted different types of uses, including short-form
comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
and
music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
performances, video editing, and stop motion animation. On February 1, 2013, a Turkish journalist used Vine to document the aftermath of the 2013 United States embassy bombing in Ankara. Vine had also gained ground as a promotional tool; in 2013, the track listing of
Daft Punk Daft Punk were a French electronic music duo formed in 1993 in Paris by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. Widely regarded as one of the most influential acts in dance music history, they achieved popularity in the late 1990s as p ...
's album '' Random Access Memories'' was revealed via a Vine video, and on September 9, 2013,
Dunkin Donuts Dunkin' Donuts LLC, also known as Dunkin' and by the initials DD, is an American multinational coffee and doughnut company, as well as a quick service restaurant. It was founded by Bill Rosenberg (1916–2002) in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 195 ...
became the first company to use a single Vine as an entire television advertisement.
A&W Restaurants A&W Restaurants is an American fast food restaurant chain distinguished by its burgers, draft root beer and root beer floats. Being the oldest restaurant chain in America, A&W's origins date back to 1919 when Roy W. Allen set up a roadside ...
launched its Mini Polar Swirls on Vine on April 1, 2014, with the claim that it was the first product launch on Vine. Music-oriented videos also shared success on the service; in July 2013, a Vine post featuring a group of women twerking to the 2012 song " Don't Drop That Thun Thun" became popular, spawned response videos, and led the previously obscure song to peak at number 35 on the '' Billboard'' Hot 100 chart. In March 2013, 22 Vines were presented in an exhibit entitled ''#SVAES'' (''The Shortest Video Art Ever Sold'') at the ''Moving Image'' art fair in New York City. Copies of the videos were available to purchase on thumb drives for US$200 each.
Angela Washko Angela Washko is an American new media artist and facilitator based in New York. She is currently Associate Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. Washko mobilizes communities and creates new forums for discussions of feminism where t ...
's "Tits on Tits on Ikea" was sold to Dutch art advisor, curator and collector Myriam Vanneschi during the event, marking the first-ever sale of a Vine as art. Following the shooting of Michael Brown in August 2014, then-St Louis City
Alderman An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members ...
Antonio French Antonio French is a former city alderman in St. Louis, Missouri's 21st Ward. From 2009 until 2017 French served as the Alderman, representing part of the neighborhoods of Penrose, College Hill, and O'Fallon, where he was born and raised. Pri ...
used Vine as a way to document the protests in Ferguson and the surrounding area. These videos were among the earliest accounts of the racial tensions in Ferguson, and helped bring national attention to the situation.


Reception

A BBC review described collections of Vine videos as "mesmerizing", like " atching abewildering carousel of six-second slices of ordinary life ollpast." An article by ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' 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." 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 Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company fully owned by Mondelez International (originally Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second largest confectionery brand in the world after Mar ...
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. Soon after its launch, Vine faced criticism for how it handled pornography; while porn is not forbidden by Twitter's guidelines, one sexually explicit clip was accidentally featured as an "Editor's Pick" in the Vine app as a result of "human error". Because pornography violates
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...
's terms of service, the app's rating was changed to 17+ in February 2013 following a request by Apple. Vine was listed among ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...
''s '50 Best Android Apps for 2013'.


Competitors

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
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 YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
launched a GIF creator in 2014. This tool allows up to six seconds of any supported YouTube video to be converted to a GIF. Sign-ups for the GIF beta are now discontinued. YouTube later began catering to those who create primarily shorter videos with its YouTube Shorts platform.
TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version o ...
(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 Musical.ly (pronounced "musically"; stylized as musical.ly) was a Chinese social media service headquartered in Shanghai with an American office in Santa Monica, California, on which platform users created and shared short lip-sync videos. The f ...
, which was founded in 2014 and became popular in 2015. 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 ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media ...
'' called it "the closest thing we'll get to having Vine back". 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.


Successor

Huddles (originally named "Byte" later Clash) is a successor to Vine created by a team led by Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann. Videos can last between two and six-and-a-half seconds and loop continuously. The launch had originally been planned for mid-2018. Reports from early 2018 showed that Hofmann had already started reaching out to social media personalities in hopes to secure viral content for the new platform. On May 4, 2018, Hofmann announced on the V2 community forums website and the official Twitter account that the project had been postponed indefinitely. On November 8, 2018, Hofmann announced the official name for 'V2' would be 'Byte', and that it was set for release in the spring of 2019. Byte underwent a closed beta period with community members from a Byte dedicated forum who were invited to test the app. Clash was officially launched on the iOS and Android stores on January 24, 2020.


See also

*
Internet meme An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...
* Likee


References


External links

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