In October, Twitter acquired a company called Vine, which made a video-sharing app which not many people had the chance to use. AllThingsD reported that Jack Dorsey was pushing heavily to get the deal done, believing that video could be a huge part of Twitter’s future success and adoption. Dorsey also reportedly pushed Twitter heavily to acquire Instagram, which didn’t happen.
Today, it seems like the company is preparing its video offering for the masses, as its own CEO has been playing around with it by sharing the links. AllThingsD is reporting that the standalone app could be available for iOS as soon as tomorrow.
Clearly, this is the type of video that the world wants to see:
As you can see, in an expanded tweet, the video auto-plays and loops, which could get extremely annoying very fast. Hopefully Twitter will also release an API update to provide a proper “play button” to avoid this.
As Financial Review points out, this would be an “Instagram for video” play, competing against all of the other apps on app stores everywhere that allow you to share and tweet out short-form videos or longer content on YouTube. The report suggests that you will be able to share six second videos on Twitter, and its unknown at this time as to whether it will be launched as a standalone app, as AllThingsD suggests, as was intended before its acquisition, or if it will be integrated into Twitter’s current apps.
Financial Review asked Twitter’s Editorial Director, Karen Wickre about the launch of a video service this week, and Wickre replied:
…you’re talking about Vine … but no I don’t think [it’s being launched] quite yet. But I’m not on the product side so I don’t know all the details.
When Vine was acquired, we discussed why this is both a good thing and a bad thing for Twitter and its users. Basically, by adding the ability to shoot and ship video to millions of people in real-time, there is a sense of privacy that will be lost by accidental postings, much like you see now with misdirected direct messages.
Once this launches, how long will it take for the first news report about an accidental video including six seconds of something nobody on the planet should have ever seen with their eyes. You figure out the rest of that one. With powerful tools, comes powerful responsibility, and video is one of the media types that is going to require an all new set of eyes to police once it rolls out.
It’s important to point out that Twitter’s previous media partner and host, Photobucket, had video capabilities, but the company decided to go in its own direction by working with Aviary. It makes complete sense that the Vine acquisition will see the light of day sometime soon.
We reached out to Twitter for comment, but it had nothing to share at this time.
[Photo credit: Flickr]