The Rise, the Fall, and the Failed Resurgence of “Vine”

For a short stint in 2016, everybody wanted to be a famous Viner. In short, the platform (created by Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov, and Colin Kroll) revolutionized the way we consume media. They were nearly capitalized on the idea that humans needed constant climax in terms of the videos they watched. By integrating a time limit of only six seconds, users were continually experiencing the best parts of online entertainment without the wait time. So, what went wrong? With a unique business model, a booming user base, and a product that changed the digital plane, what happened to Vine?

Founded in 2012, Vine slowly became the ultimate “mindless scrolling” media app. As previously mentioned, their unique take on timeframe allowed for quick, climactic videos that constantly left users entertained. Platforms like FaceBook primarily focused on the sharing of longer, more drawn out media. Vine had the idea to take away the “thinking” aspect of a social platform. In short, the app took off. Twitter recognized the potential and bought the company for $30 million in 2013. By 2015, Vine amassed over 200,000,000 users. In perspective, that’s nearly ⅔ of the United States. 

Up until now, we’ve established Vine as a pioneer in the digital age. However, their product had a catch. Vine had little to no way of monetizing the app, leading to a massive money pit. While brands flocked to influencers and threw money at them for promotional videos, Vine refused to take a cut. Unfortunately, the app became unsavable, leading to an eventual shutdown on January 17, 2017. 

Taking a quick detour, it’s interesting how TikTok has found lessons from the closure of Vine. Unlike Vine, TikTok utilizes paid feed ads (in which a product promotion will show up in the feed of a select amount of users) to run a pay-per-click program. They’ve also implemented a purchasable virtual currency that can be donated to lives. In short, TikTok has created revenue channels where Vine couldn’t. 

Moving back to Vine, an impressive resurgence recently appeared. Founded by (once again) Dom Hofmann, a new platform named “Byte” was released on January 24, 2020. With high hopes and full hearts, the app hoped to steal the stage from the current champion, TikTok. Although their first-week statistics were higher than those of TikTok, we haven’t heard much from the app since. While the product is well put together, they simply missed the necessary timeframe to capitalize on a now-full niche. 

All in all, Vine was a fantastic app. Acting as a pioneer in fast track media, it served as a cultural movement for content creators. While the platform may have shut down, it left a lasting imprint on a global scale.