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Elon Musk reportedly wants Twitter to bring back Vine
Elon Musk’s vision for Twitter may include bringing back Vine, the short-form video app the company shuttered in 2016.
Byte, the spiritual successor to Vine, has a new owner
Byte, the 'spiritual successor' to Vine created by one of its original founders, has been bought by another would-be Vine successor.
TikTok is starting a $200 million fund for its top creators
TikTok is no exception, so the company is taking some steps to keep creators from fleeing its platform for greener pastures with a $200 million TikTok Creator Fund. As the name implies, the Creator Fund will go towards users who want to try and make a living with the content they post on TikTok.
Byte's first batch of creator partners will split $250,000
Byte, the short-form video platform created by Vine cofounder Dom Hofmann, will soon start giving early creators a cut of its ad revenue. The company first revealed its plans for a Partner Program last month, publishing initial details of how it'll pay its stars, likely in an effort to lure users committed to making content. In a new post on its forum, Byte said it will start reaching out to creators "who are committed to furthering their craft" on the platform next week.
Vine successor Byte vows to fix its spam problem
Vine replacement Byte already seems to be a success, gathering not only former Vine users but the TikTok crowd, too. With that popularity has come a new problem, however: comment spam. In particular, the crowds of new users are treating Byte like a gold rush, trying to profit on the new platform's upcoming monetization by fishing for followers in the comments section. Byte is on top of the issue, however, and has promised to do something about it.
Vine co-founder launches a new 6-second video app: Byte
In 2017 Twitter pulled the plug on Vine, and left a community of extremely-short-form-video creators without a platform. Since then TikTok has flourished, but it's still not the same thing. Vine cofounder Dom Hofmann has been teasing a sequel since late in 2017, and after months of being in closed beta, Byte is now available to everyone on Android and iOS. A partner program to pay creators for their work is supposed to arrive "soon," and you sign up using either your Google account or Apple ID. If you're curious, the community guidelines are here, and the privacy notice is here. The app is video first, with a focus on getting stuff in front of you quickly just like Vine always did and TikTok does now. Will it be as addictive as either of those? Judging by the track record, probably, but it all depends on what people make of the app.
Facebook hires former Vine head for its New Product Experimentation Team
Former Vine boss Jason Toff announced he'll be joining Facebook next. In a Twitter post, Toff shared that he'll be leading Facebook's New Product Experimentation (NPE) Team. Revealed last week, the NPE Team will focus on "entirely new experiences for building community," and the high-profile hire could be promising.
Vine successor Byte is now in closed beta
These days, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok dominate the short social video space, but that wasn't always the case. Vine, the popular six-second looping video app, helped give rise to many of today's YouTube stars over the course of three years, before Twitter unceremoniously shut it down at the start of 2017. Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann teased its return in the form of Byte, promising to bring back everything that made the app unique by spring of 2019. It appears he was true to his word, because TechCrunch reports that the service has sent out the first 100 invites to its closed beta.
HQ Trivia and Vine co-founder Colin Kroll dies of apparent overdose
One of the mobile app world's more influential and controversial executives has passed away. TMZ has learned that Colin Kroll, the co-founder of both HQ Trivia and Vine, has died of an apparent drug overdose in Manhattan at the age of 34. Kroll had been the CEO of the company for just three months following a change in role for fellow founder Rus Yusupov, and it's not clear what will happen next for the startup. HQ Trivia isn't commenting at this stage.
Facebook’s internal documents show its ruthlessness
As expected, the UK Parliament has released a set of internal Facebook emails that were seized as part of its investigation into the company's data-privacy practices. The 250-page document, which includes conversations between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other high-level executives, is a window into the social media giant's ruthless thinking from 2012 to 2015 -- a period of time when it was growing (and collecting user data) at an unstoppable rate. While Facebook was white-listing companies like Airbnb, Lyft and Netflix to get special access to people's information in 2013, it went out of its way to block competitors such as Vine from using its tools.
Facebook gave Lyft and others special access to user data
Since the Cambridge Analytica revelations came to light earlier this year, there's been quite a bit of scrutiny on what companies Facebook has given user data to. And now, documents released by the UK's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which is investigating Facebook, show how the company gave certain companies special access to user data. Among those receiving favored access were Airbnb, Lyft, Netflix and Bumble, while the documents show that Facebook also pointedly denied data access to some competitors, like Vine.
Vine will be revived as Byte next spring
Last year, Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann teased a revival of the popular app, tweeting a logo that simply said "V2." However, excitement and hopes of a return were dashed in May when Hofmann said the project was postponed indefinitely, citing high costs as an issue. But Hofmann has now revealed that Vine's successor will now be called Byte and it should be launching sometime in spring 2019.
Vine's rapturous return has been delayed indefinitely
When Twitter shut down Vine in early 2017, the internet mourned what had become a haven for bizarre and unexpectedly sublime content. But by the end of the year, hope returned when its cofounder Dom Hofmann tweeted a simple but unmistakable Vine 2.0 logo announcing he was creating, on his own, a new version of the platform. And yet, fate is a fickle mistress. The tweet originally announcing the platform's return is gone, as with all others on Hofmann's account -- save one stating that Vine 2.0 has been postponed indefinitely.
Twitter may have forgotten to purge Kremlin Vine accounts
Twitter may be getting better at removing Russian propaganda bots from its service, but that doesn't mean it's still not a little bit careless. CNN believes that the company may have purged some offending Twitter accounts, but forgot to check if any of them had Vine profiles as well. Consequently, it took until this week and CNN's intervention, before a string of notorious six-second video clips were taken down.
Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann teases Vine 2.0
The social platform Vine suffered a cruel demise at the dawn of 2017 when its owner Twitter shut it down. The six-second-max format became a haven for bizarre performances that birthed a new culture with its own cadre of viral stars. Vine's closure veritably smothered a unique and unprecedented community that migrated to Instagram and YouTube with scattered success, but its absence has been mourned. But perhaps it's not too late. Today, Vine's cofounder Dom Hofmann tweeted a simple logo 'V2' in the platform's signature type and color. Perhaps Vine will return.
HQ's live trivia is coming to Android in time for the holidays
Since launching in August the HQ app has been attracting hundreds of thousands of players to its twice-daily live trivia games, but so far they're all playing on iPhones. Now, a tweet indicates that Android users will be able to get in on the action soon, since "HQ has a nice little stocking stuffer coming your way." The game came from two Vine co-founders and has seen as many as 400,000 people logging on at 3 and 9 PM ET to try and win cash prizes of up to a few thousand dollars by answering trivia questions. We've seen some attempts at this before, including NBC's short-lived Million Second Quiz game show/app and the Xbox Live game 1 vs. 100. There are other games like Trivia Crack and Quiz Up, but they don't have the same live event hook, while Family Feud Live features tournaments for cash prizes but also contains subscription fees and pushes in-app purchases heavily.
The creators of Vine built a trivia show app called HQ
The Vine guys are back, but this time it's with a gameshow app called HQ. However, this app isn't like you're typical trivia game where you can play whenever you want. With HQ, gameplay is live and takes place twice a day. "It's a way to give people a chance to have fun, maybe win, maybe learn something new," Vine cofounder Rus Yusupov told TechCrunch.
The Vine Archive will keep the videos looping forever
Vine won't be going away after all. The six-second video service that gave the world "on fleek" and an enthusiastic community of homegrown celebrities will live on in the Vine Archive, a time capsule dedicated to the site's all-too-brief four year lifespan.
Today's the last day to save your Vines
Vine, the six-second video service that briefly up-ended popular culture is on life support, and today's the day Jack Dorsey pulls the plug. From today, Vine as we know it will be shut down in favor of Vine Camera, an app that shoots six second clips to be shared on your Twitter feed. As such, you've only got a few short hours left to download your archive and remember all that you've done on the service.
Vine as we know it shuts down on January 17th
Take a deep breath, Vine fans. We knew this was coming. In a tweet, the team confirmed today that Vine will be closed down on January 17th, clarifying the "January" timeframe it gave out last month. On that day, the app will become Vine Camera, a stripped back piece of software that lets you shoot and export six-second loops to Twitter or your camera roll. As promised, the Vine website will remain untouched, acting as an archive for older uploads. You can watch classic clips, covering comedy, music and art, just don't expect anything new to come through the pipeline.
