Twitter has confirmed its plans to shut down its video platform, Vine, within the coming months in the wake of Instagram’s video successes.
If you’ve spent hours trailing through six and a half second videos, take a moment to offer a nod to Vine – the video platform which Twitter now plans to shutter before the end of the year.
In an announcement posted on Medium, Twitter confirmed its plans to kill off Vine “in the coming months”. The platform, which launched in January 2013, was the home to not only several home-grown celebrities but further proved a testbed for humorous clips and even experimental short films or episodic series.
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While Vine has been much-loved platform amongst its community, the social media service has had its fair share of troubles. The platform has been the home to numerous controversial videos, and has struggled to compete with Instagram when the Facebook-owned service first introduced video and later expanded its focus to Snapchat-style Stories.
Vine retaliated with the ability to create longer videos, yet nothing helped the platform recapture its peak. Now, Twitter has confirmed that it will abandon the network before the end of the year. The official announcement reads:
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.
Nothing is happening to the apps, website or your Vines today.
We value you, your Vines, and are going to do this the right way. You‘ll be able to access and download your Vines. We‘ll be keeping the website online because we think it‘s important to still be able to watch all the incredible Vines that have been made. You will be notified before we make any changes to the app or website.
Thank you. Thank you. To all the creators out there“Š“”“Šthank 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“Š“”“Šthank you for your contributions. And of course, thank you to all of those who came to watch and laugh every day.
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 whether Twitter sees a future in video, but considering the breadth of the trouble facing the beleaguered social network as a whole, another investment in multimedia seems unlikely.
Read: From the founder of Vine comes Peach, a new social network
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