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Twitter stretches Vines and video posts to 140 seconds
Starting today, Twitter users will get just as many seconds of video as they do characters of text. According to an announcement, Twitter is opening up 140-second videos to everyone on the service. Likewise, some Vine creators will also be able to expand outside the snappy six-second limit with a new Beyond the Vine feature that allows the shorter clips to serve as trailers for a longer, two-minute video.
Vine's Windows 10 app is a great way to watch its short videos
Vine finally debuted an official Windows 10 app today, which you can find for free on the Windows Store. It offers everything you'd expect: A selection of the latest trending Vine videos, as well as the ability to explore videos in different category channels. While you can use the app without signing up for a Vine account, it's far more functional once you log in. You can like, follow and share videos as usual, and adding a video of your own is as simple as dropping it into the app. Unique to the Windows 10 app: you can also add Vine categories as Live Tiles in the Start menu.
YouTube will soon show six-second 'Bumper' ads before videos
Unless you employ an ad-blocker, you're probably used to seeing pre-roll ads on YouTube videos. You can normally skip the longer spots if they're not really your thing, but a new format launching today, which Google calls "Bumper" ads, will bypass that reflex by keeping things short. Like, six seconds short. They'll launch in May and are designed to appear before videos that you watch on your smartphone or tablet.
Watch all of a Vine channel's videos with one touch
Vine videos aren't awfully long, and that becomes even more apparent when you're scrolling through a profile's post history. So to save some of the hassle of dragging and clicking every six seconds the app will now autoplay an entire channel's videos in succession. It comes by way of hitting the new "watch" button on Android and iOS. Want to go old fashioned and let that clip loop a few times before moving onto the next? It's still totally an option, just tap and hold on the video.
Create Facebook profile videos with Vine, Boomerang and more
Facebook flipped the switch on profile videos last fall, and now its allowing you to upload those short clips from third-party apps. The social network announced the Facebook Profile Expression Kit at F8, an SDK that will allow app developers to build in tools that allow users to set video creations as a moving profile image. There's already a handful of apps that support the profile videos during the initial beta phase, including MSQRD, Boomerang from Instagram and Vine. Once you make your video, you'll now have the option of setting it as your main Facebook profile visual with just a few taps.
On the Brink of Greatness: Social Video
Instagram videos cap out at 15 seconds. Vines? Six. As Steve Goldboom learns, though, those are still too long -- by 13 and four seconds, respectively. Yep, the new episode of his mockumentary series On the Brink of Greatness is all about the ridiculousness of social video apps. Welcome to the future where celebrities are made overnight and all they need to do is have a door slammed into their face while someone points a cellphone at them.
Vine update lets you reorder an account's videos
While Twitter is firmly behind keeping things in chronological order, Vine announced that users could reorder the videos of their favorite accounts from newest to oldest, oldest to newest and most importantly by the account's most popular videos. You can also hide revines while perusing the account. The updated app is available for iOS and Android right now while the actual feature is still rolling out.
Twitter is reportedly losing some of its top executives (updated)
It's not a good day if you're part of Twitter's top brass. Recode sources claim that multiple executives are leaving the social network, including senior engineering VP Alex Roetter, global media VP Katie Jacobs Stanton, product VP Kevin Weil and Vine leader Jason Toff. The reasons for leaving vary, but some departures are believed to be more voluntary than others -- Stanton may be one of the few exiting on her own terms. If the leak is authentic, you'll get the full details as soon as Monday (January 25th).
Happy third birthday, Vine, here's what's trending
Vine celebrates its third birthday on January 24th, and in just three years the platform has become a cornerstone of pop culture. These days, memes just don't happen unless they got their start on Vine, and the service is embracing its reputation as a taste maker. That's why the Twitter-owned network is launching Trends on Vine, a site that enables you to keep up with what the kids are doing -- without having to sit through all those Curtis Lepore clips. In addition, the outfit has revealed the five most popular trends of Year Three, as well as the clips that inspired them.
The founder of Vine made a sweet new social app, Peach
Peach is the latest product from Dom Hofmann, the founder of Vine, and he once again seems to have hit the social-networking sweet spot. Peach is a free app that allows users to share updates like on Twitter, but using commands that are reminiscent of Slack. Type the relevant "magic word" and you're able to post a GIF, draw a picture, answer a random question, rate something, add how many steps or miles you've walked that day, roll some dice, or pull up a handful of other commands.
Vine adds new 'For You' channel across the top of your feed
Vine wants to help you discover videos and people to follow with its new, For You channel that will populate the top of your feed in the iOS app. The company says that the videos surfaced will be customized to you. So if you really like goat vines, there's a good chance you're going to see some goats up there. The new channel will be available for Android soon.
Vine puts looping videos on your Apple Watch
Vine teased months ago that it was working on support for the Apple Watch, and it's finally delivering on that promise. Grab the updated Vine app for iOS and you can watch those 6-second looping videos on your wrist (either featured ones or those from favorites) whenever you need a quick pick-me-up. You can set your total loop count as a complication, too, in case you're just that close to hitting an important milestone. The wrist-based app doesn't work quite the way it does on your iPhone, as you might suspect. Videos won't automatically play, and the audio goes through the watch's built-in speaker -- keep that in mind if you decide to watch cat videos while you're waiting for the bus.
Vine's new feature lets you remix audio on top of existing clips
Sometimes you come across a Vine that you'd like to put your own spin on. To help make that process a little easier, the app now sports a remix tool that allows you to create new audio for the looping footage. To replace the sound on any Vine, simply hit the menu icon under a video (the three dots) and select "Make an audio remix." From there, you can use your phone's camera to capture your audio or select a video from your Camera Roll to pull sounds from. When browsing videos in your timeline, a music note will indicate which ones are remixes. That icon will let you view the source material, too. This is the latest in Vine's new features that help you get the perfect sound for those looping videos, following "Snap to Beat" and access to popular song clips. What's more, there's a new search that allows you to search for a clip based on the song it uses. The remix tool is available on iOS starting today and the revamped search is inside both iOS and Android versions of the app.
Key and Peele pen TV deal with Vine's King Bach
When it was announced that Key & Peele were going to wrap up production this year on their self-titled sketch show, comedy fans all around the world were pretty bummed about it. But now Deadline has reported that the two comedy stars will write and produce a new comedy starring Vine's Andrew "KingBach" Bachelor. The man who has mastered the social media platform and perfected the six-second loop is no stranger to comedy shows, having already starred in recurring roles in The Mindy Project, House Of Lies and Black Jesus. With the help of Key & Peele writer Alex Rubens, the new show will be loosely based around one of Bachelor's online personas and follow an undercover cop who goes back to his hometown in order to take out the bad guys who bullied him while growing up.
Vine helps everyone add pro-level music to their videos
After pushing out updates that focus on making its visuals better, Vine (for iOS and Android) is getting a major upgrade that introduces a bunch of new music features. The one that sounds most useful for creators, especially if you need a bit of help to quickly edit tracks for posting, is "Snap to Beat." Once you switch it on, the app can find the perfect part of the song to create a never-ending music loop with. You can, however, disable it anytime to add sound effects or to customize your BGM. In case you want to use a popular song, though, just click the app's music note icon to access a new scrollable Featured Tracks section full of well-known singles you can add straight to your six-second videos.
Vine for iOS updated with HD video uploads
We've adjusted to watching each other's lives six-seconds at a time, but Vine's shareable moments always come across a little ...blurry. Thankfully, the short-video service is fixing that: as of today, folks using the Vine app on iOS will have access to a new HD quality option. Love it. Use it. Save all of our eyes.
Twitter automatically plays videos on iOS and the web
Facebook isn't the only big social network automatically playing most videos these days -- Twitter is hopping on that bandwagon, too. Visit your feed on iOS or the web and any GIFs, Vines and native Twitter video will start playing as soon as you look at them. On iOS, clips will go full-screen if you switch to landscape mode. The move is meant to both save you a clip and, of course, keep you using Twitter's services as much as possible.
Vine makes it easier to search for the right clip
If you've ever tried to find a video on Vine you know that unless you know the name of the user or the tag associated with that video, you're pretty much out of luck. Starting today, Vine is going to start fixing that with a new search capability. The Explore tab now supports search for the title of vines in addition to tags and usernames. The results will be divided into recent and top vines. The new feature will be rolling out to the iOS version of the app over the coming weeks with an Android update in the works.
Vine makes it easier to share videos everywhere at once
So you've discovered a catchy Vine video that you know your friends will instantly appreciate, but they're scattered across multiple social networks. Will you have to sit there diligently tapping the share button over and over again to make sure everyone sees it? Not after today. Vine has updated its iOS app (Android is coming soon) with a revamped sharing feature that posts those six-second clips on multiple services in one shot. All you have to do to spread the word is mark the social networks you want to include (such as Tumblr, a new addition) and hit the share button. There's still no Instagram option, to no one's surprise, but this could otherwise save you a lot of effort.
Vine remembers it has a Windows Phone app, finally updates it
When Vine revealed its newfound HD ambitions last week, your author wondered out loud whether the company's long-in-the-tooth Windows Phone app was ever going to get an update again. Well, the answer is a pretty definitive yes: Vine pushed out the update earlier today, and with it comes a new look, support for Vine messaging and the ability to import videos straight from your camera. (Oh, and for those keeping count, the last time Vine updated the app was over a year ago. Seriously.)
