Twitter has announced that it will be shutting down its popular app Vine, as the social networking company’s revenue continues to decline.
Despite Vine still being a hugely popular app with millions of users continuing to upload their short, 6-second videos, parent company Twitter will now be slowly taking its services offline. Although this process won’t be immediate, eventually the app will be discontinued.
In a statement posted on Medium, a representative for Vine and Twitter wrote: “Today, we are sharing the news that in the coming months we’ll be discontinuing the mobile app … Nothing is happening to the apps, website or your Vines today. We value you, your Vines, and are going to do this the right way. You’ll be able to access and download your Vines. 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.”
Vine was launched in 2013, with it building up a user base of over 200 million registered accounts. The app experienced an incredible amount of growth in its launch year, growing from 77,000 unique visitors to over 3.6 million in a space of five months according to Wired. However, Vine’s short-but-sweet format made it a tough sell to advertisers, who mostly overlooked it in favor of YouTube, a larger video-sharing platform with a wider audience and more opportunities for advertorial content.
However, some marketers did see plenty of potential in partnering with various Vine “influencers,” paying those with large numbers of followers to produce sponsored content for them. Unfortunately, this method does not financially benefit Vine, despite it arguably being more effective in terms of user engagement.
The decision to shut down Vine was also likely a result of Twitter’s declining revenue, with the company currently up for sale as its Wall Street shares continue to drop. Twitter’s financial situation has been widely discussed over the course of the year, with companies such as Disney and Google all circling the company, but none making an acquisition. There has even been a petition to transform the social network into a user-owned public utility, though thus far no movements have been made in this direction.
Vine has stated that the site will remain online for the time being and that users will be able to download their Vines before it is closed. The company has suggested that users follow its official Twitter account for further updates.
