Cut the vine

This past October’s announcement, from the folks behind the short success of Vine, sent quite a surprise in its six seconds community. It could take someone off-guard after attending to a recent notification from the app. As you open up, you realise you have to sign into the app through either your Twitter account or e-mail. Even more frustrating to learn is you might have not signed into the original version of Vine. This should solidify the app’s demise. A few days ago, Twitter sent out a simple update regarding the shutting down of Vine. They’ve made it clear the app isn’t necessarily being tossed into oblivion. Instead, the original Vine is being rebranded to Vine Camera. The new evolved state of Vine will let users record looping video clips of 6.5 seconds. Once you’ve done that, the only place you can actually share them are on either Twitter or save them to your camera roll. Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but what about your past Vines that were shared within the community? The Vine files, that you can download, can be found in vine.co, which includes an index.html file that contains your Vine captions. Alongside the captions, there are the number of likes, comments and re-Vines. If you download the Vines directly from the app on your smartphone, you will only be left with your videos, minus the captions and additional information. In the process, the app will also assist you in shifting your followers onto Twitter. In other words, this entire process is a very messy and time consuming one. The issue of an app almost being sent to the obsolete stage are mainly because of other more popular social media platforms like Snapchat. Even if your snaps last only 24 hours, 10-second video clips each, you’re still able to save them into your library or camera roll. Better functions and lengthier videos make for a more enticing prospect. Fortunately for the established Vine stars, they’ve moved onto a more challenging YouTube and Facebook route. No one can take away their creative and viral 6-second hits of the past, but the present and future will be a difficult path to stroll in.