First came the announcement that Vine would lay off at least nine percent of its workforce. Then came the bigger news: Twitter is throwing in the towel.
Twitter snapped up Vine in 2012. That was right before the social video app was due to launch.
“In a post on Medium, Twitter did not provide a reason for the shutdown, but the social networking service has been unable to find a buyer and continues to lose money,” reported the Boston Globe, Ahead of the weekend.
User content may be safe for the moment.
“You’ll be able to access and download your Vines,” the company said in a post Thursday. “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.”
Mostly, Twitter is concerned about strengthening Twitter — its user base has stalled and buyout rumors abound — and Vine has likely become a project deemed unworthy of further effort and expense. However, Vine did boast more than 200 million active monthly users whose engaged audiences watched more than 1.5 billion “loops” (Vine’s term for video plays) per day.
“We have a clear plan, and we’re making the necessary changes to ensure Twitter is positioned for long-term growth,’’ CEO Jack Dorsey said in a company release.
