In 2012, before the world had TikTok, it had Vine, the app that introduced and popularized the short video format everyone enjoys through its successor.
It has almost been five years since Twitter discontinued it, but with new leadership, it could rise again.
The Big Twit himself, Elon Musk, recently launched a Twitter poll asking everyone worldwide if he should bring back Vine, possibly as part of his plans to improve the company's profitability.
You may remember that he originally planned to lay off 75% of Twitter's workers as soon as he took over the company to facilitate stronger free cash flow and profitability, but had chosen otherwise.
Elon Musk Vine Resurrection Poll Details
Musk has been Twitter's owner for only three days, but the impact of his takeover has been massive already. He first terminated the company's CEO, CFO, and two others as soon as he took over and announced that he would be forming a "content moderation council" for the platform.
He even announced he would be charging people $20 to have and keep the verified account status.
However, his changes didn't stop there. On the evening of Oct. 30, Musk opened an online poll that asked people worldwide if he should bring back Twitter's long-dead short video app, Vine, possibly to further increase the company's profitability.
Musk wouldn't be wrong to think so. TikTok's success was built on its predecessors' success, such as Vine and Musical.ly, with the latter app being acquired by TikTok's parent company, Tencent, in 2018, per The Verge.
Many people still fondly remember the app, apparently, as, by the morning of Oct. 31, 3.022 million people had cast their vote, with 69.4% voting for the app's resurrection, while 30.6% voted against it.
YouTuber MrBeast expressed his support for Musk's plan of bringing the app back to life. He even gave suggestions to Musk on how to improve the app when Musk asked him how to improve the app.
MrBeast suggested that Musk should make Vine into something that is hard to copy, as doing otherwise is only a "waste of time." Meanwhile, another internet celebrity, Alex Ernst, replied to Musk's inquiry, saying that Musk's Vine could top TikTok if Vine wouldn't spy on its users.
Ernst previously enjoyed success on Vine and gained popularity there before moving his content to YouTube.
Vine's History - A Quick Summary
Vine was first launched in 2012 as a platform for videos such as six seconds only, per Business Chief. However, its success as an independent company was short-lived, as Twitter bought the company for $30 million from its owners a few months after it launched.
Nevertheless, this acquisition deal was what the platform needed to rise to new heights. Soon, it became the most downloaded video-sharing app, with the platform hosting over a million six-second videos and over 200 million users.
However, its video duration limit became the cause of its demise. According to The Verge, the app's fate was sealed when Instagram offered users and content creators a 30-second video duration on its platform, which slowly drew the public's attention away from Vine.
Eventually, even the people that became famous through Vine, such as David Dobrik and Logan Paul, moved their content to YouTube or Instagram.
Twitter's then-CEO, its founder, Jack Dorsey, soon announced he was discontinuing Vine on Oct. 27, 2016, with the app officially taken offline on Jan. 18, 2017, per Product Mint.
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