

Is Vine Instagram for Video? - fredsters_s
http://blog.fredstevenssmith.com/2013/01/28/is-vine-instagram-for-video/

======
jgrahamc
Vine is the video equivalent of the carefully cropped Facebook photo.

The narcissistic services like Twitter and Facebook haven't really had a video
equivalent. By limiting the videos to 6 seconds people will be able to post
little videos without requiring the talent or effort to make something longer
that people will be willing to watch.

Just as the reddit front page has become dominated by meme images that require
little brain power to consume, Vine will ideal for LOL videos posted by
people. I suspect it will be very successful.

Also, the OP says "Instagram makes everyone ‘creative’." Seriously?

~~~
loceng
You're right. The ease of content creation is the initial appeal for the
masses. Then those who are or want to be more creative can rise above others,
and create consumable content that's clever, entertaining, beautiful, fun,
etc..

~~~
jgrahamc
Yes. People who are creative will use the medium (in this case 6 second
videos) in interesting ways. Of course, Vine will highlight those videos as
examples of how great the service is.

There's really no difference between this and giving everyone a box of
Crayolas: most people will produce crap, a few will be Picasso. The ease of
sharing your creation is the key element.

~~~
loceng
I was never good at crayons. I can definitely hit 'Record' on my phone though
and point it at things I find interesting or beautiful, that surely some
others will find interest in as well.

~~~
rgbrgb
If you can do it well, that's quite a talent!

------
brianchu
When I saw Vine I instantly thought of Cinegram [1]. Basically it's like Vine
but it allows you to selectively animate portions of the video. This leads to
lots of hilarious gif-like clips which IMO are much more shareable (and
addictive) than Vine.

[1] <http://cinemagr.am/>

~~~
ChrisArchitect
yeah, every day since vine launched I keep thinking, why not GIFs. With the
maximum mainsteam acceptance/resurgence of GIFs these days, it seems like
cinegram and GIFboom are already doing this. GIFs also embed/shareable etc.
Same 6-second capture/edit/post process too. Hmmmm

------
pmoehring
Like the insights and mostly agree.

I think you missed an interesting point, though:

Can Twitter (or Facebook, or anyone else for that matter) still build the next
big thing internally? Are these companies still as 'startup' as they think
they are, or are they now too slow and bureaucratic to come up with products
unrelated to their own core functionality?

A follow question: should they even come up with the new cool thing, or should
they focus on their core offerings and simply buy break out successes when
they are apparent?

In my opinion, both FB and Twitter are overestimating their chances here, like
any incumbent always does (see Christensen). The questions "what if Google
does this" is dismissed by every founder, because obviously Google is too
focused on its core mission to make the success of a new social app the
forefront of its development efforts.

Both companies are focusing more and more on being platforms for others,
rather than building and testing all new paradigms themselves. This is what
being the incumbent allows you to do, taking much larger risks, with larger
payoffs. Launching a lot of small apps with cool ideas certainly shouldn't be
their core business when they need to figure out how to deal with their
growing developer ecosystem (again, something both companies are struggling
with).

Acting on fear, which both companies did with their recent apps, certainly
isn't the right strategy. But maybe I'm wrong and Twitter and Facebook are the
only companies that can escape the innovator's dilemma?

BTW - Google is doing fine on that front with self driving cars and rockets,
despite their not so apparent track record in social.

~~~
fredsters_s
I don't think they can, no. But twitter didn't build vine, they acquired it.
Can twitter and Facebook acquire the next big thing? Sure :)

~~~
pmoehring
Before it's the next big thing? That would mean acquiring all good small
startups that are active in _some_ space they are interested in, without
waiting for the decision on who's the best. Again, fear does not make good
decisions.

------
loceng
Vine is about forcing creativity and curation of the visual world around us. 6
seconds really limits the amount of content you include in order to tell a
simple story. The 140 character limit on Twitter, whether purposeful or not
initially, also forces this creativity and simplifying a message to give as
much meaning possible in as little space possible.

Imagine if Twitter had / was able to acquire Instagram. That, plus Vine, and
I'd say Twitter would be on their way to helping rapidly kill Facebook; Now
Facebook's death with just be a bit slower, and they may own some more assets
that might be worth something.

~~~
fredsters_s
Totally agree. I'm surprised that Twitter didn't. I wonder what the story
behind that is

~~~
kmfrk
Twitter actually were willing to offer more than Facebook, but something made
Kevin go with Facebook's offer in the end.

I think it was Systrom who made carved out that path for Instagram, and not
any reluctance on Twitter's part.

~~~
fredsters_s
Do you have anything to back this up? Articles etc? I heard lack of liquidity
was the issue

~~~
kmfrk
I didn't post the link at first, because I couldn't find it in my bookmarks,
but I got lucky with my Google search:

    
    
        The people familiar with the negotiations said Twitter
        executives were shocked that they had not been given an 
        opportunity[1] to present a counteroffer. They said 
        Twitter was prepared to make higher offers [than $525M].
    

~ [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/technology/instagram-
found...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/technology/instagram-founders-
were-helped-by-bay-area-connections.html?pagewanted=all)

~~~
loceng
Facebook's $1 billion offer being valid must have been contingent on not
seeking a counter-offer.

------
brown9-2
When people say things like "I thought it would be interesting to unpack
Vine’s success so far", what is "success" based on?

Is Vine a "success"/popular? How is this quantified?

~~~
kmfrk
It's popular the same way Quora is:

1\. People like Techcrunch are talking about it.

2\. (...)

3\. Success!

~~~
dmix
Step 1.5: Trendy SV/SF people starting tweeting and blogging about it.

------
nasalgoat
Why no mention of Keek in any of these Vine discussions? It's the closest
competitor in functionality and has some serious traction in the microvideo
space.

~~~
fredsters_s
Good point. dmor wrote about this yesterday
[http://refer.ly/is_twitter_s_vine_launch_a_response_to_popul...](http://refer.ly/is_twitter_s_vine_launch_a_response_to_popular_social_video_service_keek_/c/51bd750a68c511e2bfbf22000a1db8fa)

------
fredsters_s
One point I didn't explicitly make in the post: Vine is not about gifs, it's
about video.

~~~
jgh
Though I wouldn't be against it if it were gifs really... I kind of like the
videos without sound more.

~~~
cwilson
I didn't realize there was audio in Vine until this morning. I always have my
phone on mute and didn't think to try the app out with mute off. I prefer it
with mute on, specifically because the sound takes away from the experience
because it's clips of sound stitched together, which does not sound very nice.

~~~
MBCook
That was my reaction. When vinepeek.com was posted over the weekend I thought
it was fantastic.

It was only later when showing it to my family I realized there was sound,
since my laptop is always muted if I'm not actively listening to something on
it.

Withou the sound, it was sort of like amazing slice-of-life home movies from
all over the world in a neat little mash up of humanity.

With the sound... it was a bunch of videos. Often neat, but somehow less.

~~~
fredsters_s
Yeah it is an interesting choice. I may be wrong, but when I saw the first
Vines shared by Kevin Rose on twitter they were without sound. I think it was
a conscious effort to differentiate themselves from gifs, and all the internet
baggage that come with them

------
nextparadigms
Hasn't Apple banned it yet? And if not, why not? I find the double standard
appalling.

~~~
loceng
Politics? Apple might be trying to buy Twitter.

~~~
zmitri
It seems as though a lot of App Store features can be quite political.
Everything is oriented around US front page position -- it can bring in ~10K
downloads a day in the US without much marketing.

In order to endorse content like that however, Apple wants to know that the
app can handle the traffic and the server costs. If they know you are a big
company, or even a funded startup, it plays a role in the selection process.

------
lukethomas
I wrote the same thing yesterday. It will be very interesting to see how this
battle for video pans out.

<http://lukethomas.com/vine-is-for-storytelling/>

~~~
zmitri
Hey Luke,

I make a storytelling app, so I've thought a lot about story telling apps in
the past. I understand how you see it as a storytelling medium, but do you
really think it's an efficient one? A great one? Could you really make a
powerful story using Vine? I'm still unsure, but I think they are going to
have a pretty hard time conveying a powerful narrative with it.

Here's a couple examples made with our app, would love to hear your thoughts:
<http://backspac.es/r/sKu44BhXgn>, <http://backspac.es/r/klfmvMdWD1>

------
nazgulnarsil
Is it another monument to narcissism? Yeah, seems to be.

------
ErikAugust
One question: Was Vine completely cultivated at Twitter? Or was it something
they snapped up in very early stages from someone else?

~~~
fredsters_s
AFAIK no, it was in a fairly late (pre-launch) beta stage before being
acquired, and raised a seed round from GV among others (hence Kevin Rose
posting Vines when it was still in private beta).

~~~
ErikAugust
Right - I noticed Rose's Vines go back as far as 130 days. Figured he (and GV)
was involved as an investor.

------
lewisflude
Is there a possibility the whole Vine adult content hiccup was just a
publicity stunt?

~~~
jyap
I believe so. For them an instant thing they could do is just ban certain tags
such as #porn and others that still work. I believe it is a calculated thing
they are doing. However it does put them at risk of being banned from the App
Store like 500px so perhaps not. Perhaps they do not have the resources to
deal with the problem.

~~~
kenbellows
Banning tags doesn't solve anything. It simply encourages dishonesty and makes
it harder to keep track of the unwanted posts.

------
loceng
P.S. You're wrong about Google's social efforts bombing. They are filling in a
need.

~~~
fredsters_s
I'd love to see some data that supports what you're saying

~~~
kenbellows
[http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/google-becomes-the-worlds-
secon...](http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/google-becomes-the-worlds-second-most-
popular-social-network-28-01-2013/)

------
marikachen
Excellent!

------
minm
Vine is a Privacy nightmare

