Back in October, Twitter shocked the Internet by revealing its plan to shut down Vine, the video capture app known for creating six-second loops. In the days after that announcement, a wave of public support for Vine raised the app’s profile, to the point that Twitter considered a sale rather than a shutdown.
Now, Vine’s fate has been decided: It will live on as a camera app that will let users download videos or post them directly to Twitter.
Vine Camera, as a blog post terms the app, will let users shoot the same six-second, looping videos currently available on Vine. The social network aspect of the app, however, will be stripped away, and the easiest way to share Vines will be to post them on Twitter.
Subscribe to get the latest creator news
It does seem like the creative community that built Vine into a cultural touchstone will have much use for Vine Camera (especially now that most of that community’s members have migrated to platforms like YouTube and Instagram), but the app will still be useful for some purposes. Sports highlights, for example, are common on Vine, and the people who want to share the latest big dunk with their friends will still be able to do that.
Ultimately, Vine Camera makes sense. Twitter’s own video infrastructure has improved dramatically over the past few years, and Vine’s status as a social media hub became redundant. At the same time, it would not have been right for a platform that made such a big impact to disappear entirely, so I for one am happy that Vine is sticking around, at least in some form.
With Vine’s future status set, the app’s team is moving forward with several initiatives that will ease the forthcoming transition. Users can now download their Vines, and the app’s users will soon receive instructions on how to ferry their Vine followers over to Twitter. For more information about Vine’s devolution into Vine Camera, check out this FAQ.
