What happened to Vine app? Why did Vine die and what was the cause of its failure?

Vine was a popular video hosting social platform that gave users six-seconds of Internet fame by sharing short videos on the Internet. After it was founded in June 2012, the company was soon acquired by the microblogging platform Twitter for $30 million the same year in October, even before its official launch.

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What is Vine?

Vine was just a video-sharing app that allowed users to share six-second-long, looping videos on social media. It came with easy sharing capabilities thereby allowing it to gain popularity in a short span of time. It was the app’s video looping feature that attracted millions of users into watching hours of content which featured hilarious, silly and even creative content. Vine boasted of a massive user base and was also used by celebrities as a platform to promote their brand in a creative way.

What happened to the Vine app?

Twitter discontinued the Vine mobile app in October 2016; however, the website and the app were still available for users for viewing and downloading content but content creators were no longer allowed to post new videos. The same year in December, it was announced that the Vine mobile app would be operational as a standalone service, thereby allowing creators to create and share their content; however, it was directly connected to the user’s Twitter feed, and not on Vine.

Soon after, Vine was renamed to ‘Vine Camera’. This new application enabled users to again record six-second videos and share it only on their Twitter profiles. However, the app failed to perform and was subsequently met with poor reviews from the users.

Twitter had launched an Internet archive of all the previous Vine videos which allowed users to continue watching all older Vines; however, the website is currently not operational.

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Why did Vine die?

While there are many experts claiming that the very acquisition of Vine by Twitter somehow tramped its growth potential, it is also worth mentioning that the company had a major focus on staying true to itself and not adjusting to the needs of the users. It was its failure to meet the ever-growing market demands which also debilitated its ability to compete with apps that introduced their own equivalents to Vine's short-form video approach.

Instagram made Vine obsolete

Platforms like Instagram introduced their own take on the short video angle, such as Instagram Video, where it gave creators the ability to share 15-second videos to their handles. In the words of a former Vine executive, "Instagram video was the beginning of the end" for Vine. It is believed to be true as Vine was never able to recover since Instagram launched the ‘Video’ feature in 2013.

The Instagram Video feature allowed users to create 15-second videos, which was a major difference compared to the six seconds that were offered on Vine. This led to most of the average users and popular Vine stars bid adieu to Vine and switch to Instagram.

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Vine’s unsustainable business model

Marketers moving away from Vine can be considered another enormous part of the decision why Twitter decided to discontinue the platform. Vine was not able to find a sustainable business model as it was viewed by many advertisers and promotors as a platform that did not suite well for promoting their products.

Also, Vine was not able to offer a shared revenue to its content creators, unlike YouTube. In addition to this, it was also seemingly difficult for content creators to build on their popularity on the platform after a decline in downloads and active users.

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Image credits: Vine.co