Vine will not be an infinite loop.
It was four years ago this month when Twitter bought Vine for a reported $30 million, but now the relationship has fully withered. On a Medium blog post, Twitter revealed that it’s shutting down the looping video app in the coming weeks.
“You’ll be able to access and download your Vines,” the post read. “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.”
How long the Vine videos will live on the website is unknown, but creation of the mobile app’s six-second clips has already been halted. It’s a fairly surprising move.
It’s been known for many months that Vine has been struggling to keep marketers’ attention. That was due to its inability to compete with Instagram and Snapchat for Gen Y’s and Gen Z’s attention, though most industry watchers were expecting the app to survive into 2017.
When Instagram added video in 2013, it was seen as a major blow to Vine’s appeal. Snapchat’s rise only further damaged Vine’s chances at long-term success.
All that said, Vine will go down as an important app in the evolution of mobile video. It attracted more than 200 million monthly users.
