Vine Introduces Subscriptions, Push Notifications, Favorite Accounts Feature

Vine just implemented a feature familiar to any Twitter user.  The six-second video app now allows its users to select their favorite accounts and receive push notifications when those accounts post new videos (just like its parent company, Twitter, can send out push notifications whenever an account a user is following posts a new tweet).

Vine users can simply click on the “star” button in the upper right-hand corner of a profile to favorite the account. When a user’s favorite profiles post new content, a push notification will be sent to the user’s activity feed and mobile device. The app’s users can review, change, or stop their favorite accounts and push notification settings through the Settings section of the Vine app.

“We’ve been testing this feature at Vine, and it’s really helped us keep up with the people and Vines we care about most,” wrote developer Felix Fung on Vine’s official blog.

Research from Beachfront Media has shown push notifications can be instrumental in gaining views and followers, as well as building up a brand. The media company found 80%

of video app users opt to keep push notifications on for content, topics, companies, and people they’re passionate about. Viners would definitely fall into that latter category for a good chunk of the video platform’s 100 million monthly viewers. And if 80% of those users keep push notifications activated for some of their favorite Vine channels, you can expect the platform’s one billion loops a month loop-count to dramatically increase in the near future.

One caveat. VentureBeat notes the new favorites feature is only available to Android and iOS users. Windows Phone owners won’t be able to favorite profiles or receive push notifications. However, the Windows users have always had the exclusive ability to save an account to their home screens and see its updates, essentially eliminating the need for a separate favorites feature and push notifications.

If you don’t already own the video app, make sure you download Vine via the iTunes app store or Google Play so you can check out its newest feature and start favoriting away.