Twitter acquired the short-form video app Vine a couple of years ago for about $30 million. It was a new concept that allowed people to create and post six-second videos. Vine had an incredible community of independent creators but many have since moved to Instagram which allows significantly longer videos. Twitter now sees no value in keeping Vine around so it announced today that Vine is going to be shut down.
The company says that it’s going to discontinue the Vine app “in the coming months,” but it’s not going to delete Vines that have already been posted just yet. “We value you, your Vines, and are going to do this the right way,” it said.
Vine users will be able to access and download their Vines. Twitter will 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.”
Vine was off to a good start back when it was launched in 2013 but its true potential was never realized. Growth took a hit when Instagram launched its own video service and Vine never really recovered.
Twitter’s decision to kill Vine comes at a time when it’s trying to overhaul its main product: the microblogging network. User growth has been slow partly because of the abuse problem that plagues the platform, Twitter has also said today that it’s going to introduce meaningful safety improvements next month.