Elon Musk wants something old back. He has asked engineers to revive Vine, a short-form video app that was shut down by Twitter in 2016 and preceded TikTok and Instagram reels.
Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, has a new vision for Twitter, among which he wants to revive Vine, the short-form video app that came long before TikTok and Instagram reels. Musk has requested that Twitter engineers examine Vine’s old code and determine if it can be revived, according to reports. A yes/no poll was also posted by the “Chief Twit” on 31 October, asking his followers, “Bring back Vine?” More than four million voted, and 69.6 percent of people.
Bring back Vine?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2022
What exactly is Vine?
Vine is a short video app that became popular in 2013. It was created by Dom Hoffman, Rus Yusupov, and Colin Kroll. Users could make six-second videos that would play on a loop. A precursor to TikTok and Instagram reels, it is said to have inspired short-format videos that are so popular on social media today.
Why did Vine disappear?
The Vine app was acquired in 2012 by Twitter and released to the public a year later. It was growing in popularity and had over 200 million active users. However, Facebook helped kill Vine. According to leaked documents, Facebook blocked Vine’s access to Facebook data, a decision Mark Zuckerberg personally approved. Vine has been deprived of access to a feature on Facebook that allows users to search for and add friends on the video platform.
During the month of October 2016, Twitter announced it would end Vine, which users would no longer be able to upload new videos, but they would be able to access old videos. Two months later, Vine’s website was shut down, but its successor app, Vine Camera, was released for iOS and Android two months later. In 2017, Twitter released an archive of all Vine videos, but that too was taken down in 2019.
What is Musk’s motivation for reviving Vine?
The new owner of Twitter, Musk, wants to take Vine from TikTok with a Vine reboot. According to a report in Axios, engineers have been asked to work on it by year’s end. The video app’s old code base hasn’t been updated since Twitter shut it down. Twitter engineers are looking at it.
In addition to Vine, Musk is considering bringing TikTok back, which is banned in India but is the world’s top-grossing app. With approximately $914.4 million in consumer spending in the third quarter of 2022, TikTok’s global app and Douyin on iOS together held the top spot for non-game apps on the App Store and Google Play combined.
According to the app’s latest statistics, it generated $2.5 million a day on Android and iPhone devices on a global scale, excluding the iPad, in September.
Despite the addition of new video features by Twitter since 2016, reviving Vine could offer video creators an alternative platform that is distinct from Twitter’s general discourse. The Suggested Videos section on Twitter started showing short videos a few weeks ago. The vertical scroll design is now popular on other platforms as well.
In addition to the Vine poll, Musk asked, “How can we make it better?” he was responding to YouTube creator MrBeast, who said that competing with TikTok would be “hilarious.”
If you did that and actually competed with tik tok that’d be hilarious
— MrBeast (@MrBeast) October 31, 2022
Musk’s plan to turn Twitter into a “super app” like China’s WeChat aligns with his plan to revive Vine. However, enabling this on a realistic schedule may not be possible.
What are the chances of a Vine reboot?
It has been six years since Vine shut down. A source told Axios that the video app “needs a lot of work”. Reviving the app in the next two months won’t be easy. In her Twitter post, Sara Beykpour said that Vine’s original software may be outdated. “This code is 6+ years old. Some of it is 10+ years old. You should start over if you want Vine to flourish,” she said.
some free advice, from someone who worked at Vine and also led the shutdown of Vine.
— sara beykpour (@pandemona) October 31, 2022
This code is 6+ years old. Some of it is 10+. You don’t want to look there. If you want to revive Vine, you should start over.
trust me on this one guys ✌️🌱 https://t.co/knM0mKM3Xf
The founder of Vine, Rus Yusupov, explained in September that the app did not work because it lacked the right features and could not be monetized.
What’s the smart take on why Vine died even though it was basically TikTok?
— Eli Pariser 🏞📲 (@elipariser) September 12, 2022
Vine is likely to have difficulty competing with YouTube Shorts and TikTok, according to a blog published by Engadget. Almost all of TikTok’s success can be attributed to the app’s “For You” algorithm, which always finds the videos that keep people glued to it. Many of Vine’s most prolific creators have moved on to other platforms, it says. Vine never had anything comparable.