GIF-lovers take note: There's a new media-sharing tool in the Twitter world. On Thursday, the social network introduced Vine, "a mobile service that lets you capture and share short looping videos." And they're not kidding when they say short. Vine allows you to post six-second videos that can be viewed in your followers' Twitter feed. Here's our first attempt:
Twitter has been trying to get into the video-sharing game for a while. It acquired Vine in October last year, and while a number of video apps already exist, the short format of Vine videos best compliments Twitter's affection for brevity. Requiring users to keep their videos short, "inspires creativity," Vine said on its blog.
Upon learning about Vine, one of my coworkers asked, "So, it's kind of like a GIF?" Indeed, and that's probably not an accident, considering how popular and viral those mini-videos have become on social media. Also, Vine is incredibly easy to use. Users put a finger on the screen of their mobile devices to record, and remove it to stop. You can also record multiple clips and stitch them together for one continuous clip.
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Unfortunately, shortly after Twitter's announcement, the app ran into what will likely be the first of many launch hiccups: No one could find it.
In case you turn up empty-handed after searching the iTunes App Store, you can find Vine here. For now, it's only available for iPhone and iPod Touch, but Twitter says it's working to expand Vine's reach.
