Curious about the increasingly prevalent video clips on your Twitter feed? They’re likely associated with Vine, the new mobile app created by Twitter that allows users to generate and share video clips. Video clips created on Vine last a maximum of six seconds, and they run on a loop, similar to GIFs. Vine is undoubtedly user friendly. Just tap the screen to record and take you finger off when you want to stop filming. The nature of creating the videos even lends itself to creative stop motion movies.
Though Dom Hofmann and Rus Yusupov founded Vine, Twitter acquired it in October 2012 before it debuted this past January as a free iOS app for the iPhone and iPod touch. It is currently not available on Android devices.
While there are other video apps out there, Vine seems to have become the most popular in its field, and for good reason. Besides being easy to operate and straightforward, it has a growing community of users. There are not yet concrete statistics out on the exact number of active members, but several celebrities have accounts. Paul McCartney, Tyra Banks, Jimmy Fallon and Enrique Iglesias have all posted videos on Vine. Having a vast community of users ensures Vine’s continual climb in popularity and characterizes it as a social network instead of simply a venue for sharing videos.
Additionally, many companies have created accounts for a seemingly innovative approach to marketing. Toyota, Dove, Sweetshot Photography and Wheat Thins are among those with accounts. Surely the idea would be to generate a positive impression in the consumer in a mere six seconds. Perhaps the future will even see Vine videos promoting new movies or new music.
Vine’s six-second time length for videos is an entertaining idea and likely speaks to the current generation’s decreasing attention span. Can we not focus on anything for more than six seconds? It follows the trend of Twitter limiting users to only 140-characters in tweets. Even more hilarious is the notion that the most popular tweets are even shorter than the allotted 140-characters. Vine seems to occupy the middle of the spectrum. The videos are longer than the amount of time it takes to view pictures found on Instagram but shorter than the length of a video found on YouTube. People may find the idea of a shorter buffering time coupled with a lack of advertisement before the video appealing. Maybe Vine can capitalize on the middle ground.
Admittedly, as Vine is still a very new app, there are some problems to be worked out. There have already been several controversies dealing with pornographic content on Vine. Allegedly, there was also a glitch that allowed users to post from others’ accounts. Users have complained about the amount of time it takes the short videos to load. Also, Vine would be much more accessible if it were available on Android devices rather than being restricted to iOS.
While the app certainly has a lot of potential, it seems contingent on continuous posting of interesting content by its users. Imagine if people stopped updating their Facebook statuses or stopped tweeting. It may seem fantastic at first to not deal with political campaigns, inane posts begging you to “like this status” and random song lyrics, but, ultimately, what would keep you coming back? With nothing to look at, any social networking website would become obsolete.
Samantha Delle can be reached at samanthadelle@aol.com.