Twitter has announced that it will shut down its Vine video sharing app.
Twitter is closing down its Vine video sharing service, the company announced on October 27th. The social media giant revealed that it will be shutting down the mobile app in January 2019, after purchasing it for $30 million in 2012. Vine was one of Twitter’s most popular apps, allowing users to create and share six-second videos with their followers. However, Twitter has struggled to find a way to make money from the platform and has seen a sharp decline in its popularity.
What is Vine?
Vine was created by Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll back in June 2012 as a mobile app that allowed users to create and share short videos with each other. The app soon became extremely popular and was purchased by Twitter in October 2012 for $30 million. In 2013, Vine hit 40 million users and had 100 million unique visitors per month. However, since then the app’s popularity has declined rapidly due to competition from other apps such as Instagram Stories.
Why is Twitter shutting down Vine?
According to Bloomberg , “the decision comes after several years of executives attempting different strategies to make money from the service.”
In 2016, Twitter cut 9% of its staff – around 300 people – following declining revenue growth which saw shares drop by 20%. In 2017, former CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that he didn’t know what his company did best or how it could make money long term.
The announcement follows several months of speculation about whether or not the platform would be shut down . In August 2018 , co-founder Dom Hofmann tweeted that he wanted to buy back Vine but didn’t receive any response from Twitter.
Despite the announcement today , there are still ways you can access your Vines if you want them saved forever . Vine data can be downloaded here . You can also use an Instagram downloader , like iMazing (available on Mac), which will allow you to get your data out of Instagram if needed.
And if you’re wondering what happened with those six second clips on Snapchat… they were turned into 10 second ones! You can read more about this here
