Okay, I’ll try to do this in six seconds, let’s see how it goes.
Today, Twitter announced that it will be discontinuing the Vine mobile app. Remember Vine? That app or website (depending on what age you’re living in) where you can watch six-second videos.
The company posted this on its Medium page: “Since 2013, millions of people have turned to Vine to laugh at loops and see creativity unfold. Today, we are sharing the news that in the coming months we’ll be discontinuing the mobile app.”
According to BBC, “Twitter did not give a reason for the closure, but earlier on Thursday it announced it was cutting 9% of its workforce following slow growth of the social network.”
I know I said six seconds, but I just couldn’t resist going overtime.
Why Twitter is shutting it down
It’s really not hard to see why. One, social media platforms thrive on advertisers’ money and it’s just so hard to see how Vine can help Twitter’s shaky revenue figures and business model at the moment. Two, there are rumours that Twitter is getting ready to be sold, just that there are no buyers yet.
So, like one Medium commenter aptly put it, “Twitter is preparing for sale. Six second videos are hard to put pre-roll ads on.”
Vine has been under the Twitter umbrella since it was acquired in 2012. Since inception, Twitter has always had an identity crisis and a revenue model problem. It has changed CEOs one too many times, and now, many believe, is the time for it to be sold. But the problem is that no one wants to buy Twitter, at least not yet.
The company ended the blog post by saying: “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.”
“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.”
It’s unclear what Twitter wants to do with the video service now, considering it also has Periscope, the live video broadcasting app, under its umbrella.
BBC’s David Lee wrote, “What’s not clear is whether Twitter plans to integrate Vine-like features into its main app – I’d be very surprised if they binned the format altogether. [The platform] has a dedicated fan base, and there are many Vine celebrities out there.But you’re almost as likely to see a Vine re-shared on Facebook than you are to see it on Vine itself – perhaps that was part of the problem.”
