Vine

Six seconds, looped forever

Shut down
19902026

Vine was the six-second looping video app that invented short-form video culture, bought by Twitter for a reported $30 million before it even launched in January 2013. At its peak it claimed 200 million active users. Twitter announced its shutdown on 27 October 2016 and discontinued the app on 17 January 2017.

Timeline

  1. 2012
  2. October 2012 Acquisition
    Twitter buys Vine pre-launch

    Reported ~$30M for a product that had not shipped.

  3. 2013
  4. 24 January 2013 Launch
    Vine launches on iOS

    Six-second looping videos; Android follows in June.

  5. 9 April 2013 Peak
    #1 free app in the US App Store

    Three months after launch, Vine tops the charts.

  6. 3 June 2013 Version
    Android app launches

    Vine finally arrives on Android as Instagram prepares its counterpunch.

  7. 20 June 2013 Decline
    Instagram adds 15-second video

    Facebook aims squarely at Vine; Vine sharing drops sharply within months.

  8. 2015
  9. December 2015 Peak
    200 million active users claimed

    Vine's own milestone figure.

  10. 2016
  11. 27 October 2016 Shutdown announced
    Twitter announces Vine's discontinuation

    Announced the same day as 9% company-wide layoffs.

  12. 2017
  13. 17 January 2017 Shutdown
    Vine app discontinued

    Replaced by a camera app; the website archive survives until 2019.

Ownership

Vine Labs 2012–2012 Founded Founded by Hofmann, Yusupov and Kroll in June 2012
Twitter 2012–2017 Acquisition, $30M Acquired before public launch

Key figures

MetricValueAs ofConfidence
Monthly active users ▲ 200 million December 2015 Reported Vine's own claimed figure

Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate

Why it shut down

Official line: Twitter announced it would discontinue the Vine mobile app "in the coming months" while keeping the website as an archive.

Our analysis: Twitter bought Vine before launch but never figured out monetisation, lost its stars to Instagram and Snapchat (which paid them), and killed the app during 2016 cost cuts. TikTok later proved the short-video format Vine invented was worth hundreds of billions.

History

Six seconds

Twitter bought Vine in October 2012, months before launch, for a reported $30 million. The app shipped in January 2013 with one brutal constraint: videos were six seconds, looping. The limit became a genre. Vine minted a new class of creator, birthed a decade of meme formats, and its loops still circulate as clips today.

The bag fumble

Vine's stars asked Twitter for money; Instagram and Snapchat simply paid them, and by 2016 the exodus was terminal. On 27 October 2016, hours after announcing 9% staff cuts, Twitter said the app would be discontinued. It went dark on 17 January 2017, with the site kept as a read-only archive until 2019. Three years later TikTok took the exact format to a billion users, making Vine the clearest case in this database of a platform killed while holding a winning hand. Co-founder Dom Hofmann later launched Byte as an apology to the format.

Sources

  1. Twitter is shutting down Vine TechCrunch 27 October 2016 [archived]
  2. Vine Is Dead: Mobile App to Be Discontinued in Coming Months Variety 27 October 2016 [archived]

Last verified: 11 August 2026