Twitter last Thursday unveiled a new mobile video-sharing app called Vine, immediately available for the iPhone. It allows Twitter users to capture short videos that can then be embedded directly into tweets on Twitter’s website. It allows you to post a six second video snippet online.
But I come back to ‘the Seesmic question’ and have to ask who is it for and what problem does it solve? Almost any technology can find fans and a small social group who will champion it, but the tech fails to break out into a large-scale consumer success.
What does Vine do differently? Peter Kafka, on All Things D:
Why would you want to download Vine? Because it’s supposed to be a fun tool for making and sharing very short video clips — no longer than six seconds a pop — in the same way that Instagram worked for photos. And it’s designed in a similar way, with the ability to follow other Vine users’ clips, explore stuff from people you don’t know, etc.
It doesn’t do anything differently beyond ‘smartphones have got a bit better in the meantime.’ By all means launch, iterate, and see if this works, but it’s re-inventing the wheel.
Ewan Spence is a blogger, author and writer based out of Edinburgh, Scotland. In addition to his own blog, he has contributed and contributes to BBC News, BBC Magazine (online), The Stage (UK Arts and Entertainment Newspaper), Computing (VNU), iProng Magazine, IT Pro, O’Reilly’s Make Magazine, Palmtop Magazine, Podcast User Magazine, UK Tech and UK Mobile Blognation, PDA Essentials, Mobile Messaging 2.0 and All About Symbian.
He wrote the book Rapid Mobile Enterprise Development for Symbian OS and has audio program commissions for BBC Radio 5 Live – Through the Night and Pods and Blogs, Computer Outlook Talk Radio Show and Talk 107. He also regularly speaks at and moderates panels at high profile technology conferences around the world.
