Curious as to what exactly Vine is? Vine is a video-sharing application which allows people to create, share, and publish six-second videos. Founded by Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov, and Colin Kroll in June 2012, the app was created for the purpose of allowing individuals to capture casual moments in their daily lives to share with their friends. These videos played on a continuous loop and allowed users to edit their videos on the spot. Initially created as a standalone company, Vine was later purchased in October 2012 by the famous social media platform Twitter. After launching in January of 2013 for iOS devices, Vine was instantaneously a hit. It quickly became the most downloaded free app and the most used app for sharing video content online.
The Demise of Vine
All good things in life must come to an end, and unfortunately Twitter has chosen to put an end to the short-lived app known as Vine. Remember the demise of MySpace when Facebook launched in 2004? A similar thing happened to Vine. With new social media platforms emerging, Vine was sure to be overlooked soon enough. Following its brief popularity, companies like Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook began offering similar video-sharing options and features. What made Vine different is that it only did one thing, and it did that one thing well. Vine users took the app’s six-second time constraint as a challenge for producing unique content within such a short span of time. At the time, everyone loved these infinite looping videos—they offered the smallest amount of attention and in a way, they were improved versions of GIFs which enabled sound. However, these new social media platforms allowed other features beyond six-second video production. Snapchat allowed ten second videos to be posted, Instagram offered minute-long videos, and Facebook allowed live video streaming.
Vine was clearly struggling—more than half of its top 9,725 video creators were no longer active and had not posted content in months or had deleted their accounts. Coincidentally, the day that Vine announced the end to its app, its parent company Twitter announced it downsizing and laid off 9% of its workforce (350 people!). Could this also suggest an end for Twitter? It’s hard to say, but here are some lessons that other social media platforms can learn from the demise of Vine.
What Other Social Media Platforms Can Learn from Vine
The struggles of companies like Vine and Myspace can provide many valuable lessons to others. With new technology always changing and new platforms emerging, what Vine ultimately failed to do is stay current. Even with new competition, they forgot to pay attention to who their customers were or what they wanted out of their app. Failing to innovate and adapt will allow other companies to outperform you. With this being said, Twitter did not market Vine in anyway. Marketers could not find a way to monetize their platform. They expected their top creators to constantly post content without any economic incentive. Thus, these users moved to other similar platforms. Lastly, Vine forgot to keep in mind that content is always king. Without great content, users will be persuaded to move to other channels to meet their needs. Content was clearly lacking—with the inactivity of some of its most popular creators, so it was inevitable Vine was bound to fail.
Still getting emotional over the death of Vine? Don’t worry, even though you can’t create Vines, they are still accessible to be viewed on their website! Rest in peace, Vine! Even though you’ll no longer be in the social media loop, you’ll still be missed!