Vine was just released yesterday as Twitter’s new standalone video-sharing iOS app. It lets users thread together tiny clips into one looping six-second video, with a UI very similar to Instagram’s.
The app expectedly made a splash with early adopters in the tech world and has seemed to gain momentum in the past 24 hours, becoming the top free app in the App Store’s Social category. It’s also risen to the number 14 top free app overall. The app was featured yesterday evening by Apple, which also helps the app climb the leader board.
The real question, however, is whether or not Vine can keep its top placement in the App Store and continue to accrue downloads and new users. Remember Facebook Poke, the social network’s Snapchat killer?
That app shot to the top of the App Store like a bullet during its first few days of availability, only to fall off the charts in the subsequent weeks.
But in my opinion, Vine has a better shot at long-term success. Facebook Poke was more of a Snapchat clone than a new service, and building it was merely asking Snapchat users to abandon ship and come to the more recognizable platform. With Vine, Twitter is offering something pretty new.
Yes, competitors like Viddy and Socialcam did this a long time ago, but without any built-in user base. Vine has the power of Twitter behind it, while still being a somewhat novel service to the average user. Plus, it has the same appeal visual appeal of Instagram but with nicely packaged videos instead of photos.
And if that weren’t enough, Vine actually stands to make Twitter a more valuable company and a stronger social network. Not only does it start the process of building a bridge from platform to true social network, but it creates another stream of user-generated content for Twitter that the company actually owns.
Only time will tell if Vine can be the smash hit of 2013, but for now it’s off to a good start.