I guess the data mining was the missing ingredient for popularity?
As far as I remember, vine didnt really fail, it was just killed off one day.
It was growing too. It just wasn’t profitable.
These days we have much cheaper ways to handle uploading and downloading insane amounts of video content (if you’re interested, I recommend checking out some System Design resources on TikTok or YouTube), but it’s pretty much all CDN and slightly more efficient backend services). We also have better ways to monetize platforms. Like data. Buttt ByteDance is also trying to do things like set up physical goods stores/etc, and it’s 2024 where userbase and brand name is more important than actual revenue anyways.
Twitter clearly mishandled it. All they needed to do was give the option to post longer videos. Classic example of a large company buying a small innovative service and destroying it for no reason. I assume they thought it was too similar and in competition with Twit’s existing ability to post videos.
It wasn’t about video length, it was about the Twitter leadership at that time being categorically incapable of monetizing any of their products.
Combine that with the orders-of-magnitude higher cost of running Vine compared to the bird, and it was always either going to be sold off or shut down.
It’s easy to forget that this was back in the time when these companies thought they were changing the planet for the better and drinking their own Kool aid by the gallon.
The video length was pretty limiting, though. Instagram at the time started doing 15 second videos. The six seconds lent itself to goofy comedy and not much more.
It seems like they should have sold it. Or just jammed in a bunch of ads… maybe an option to remove ads with a paid membership. Simply killing it doesn’t make any money other than to avoid losing more, and they’d already invested a fair bit which you can’t recoup by just closing something. Of course, Google does that all the time I guess.
Data mining, timing, and just sheer luck I guess.
See also: Sega Dreamcast: had online multiplayer and industry redefining graphics, but hamstrung by an onboard 33.6kbps modem.
Flappy Bird: one of the most rudimentary games ever, but just seemed to take off and start it’s own snowballing success.
Google Glass: probably had the data mining and cash to weather a bad luck storm, but ultimately was a lower spec AR set that are being hawked today.
I suppose musical.ly rode the wave of popularity, hit the right time post-credit crunch, and rebranded itself in such a way that the pandemic was good for business…
…oh, and the liberal use and sharing of data, too.
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The Dreamcast failed because it released on 9/9/99, then 11 days later, the PS2 was revealed at the Tokyo Game Show. The PS2 looked like a better system on paper, so no one bought a Dreamcast.
Yeah that was a huge part of it too. I’m not saying this was the only part. Just a big contributing factor.
It was apparently selling well in the West, but Sega of Japan gonna Sega of Japan.
Was gonna say, knew quite a few people with a DreamCast, was surprised they kinda gave up on it
(EDIT: then again, literally everyone had a PS2…)
I don’t know man, I agree with everything you say but I wouldn’t say the security element killed the system - the PS1 and DS had rampant piracy but still sold like hot cakes. I know people (anecdotal evidence alert) who bought a first gen Switch because it was so easy to flash and exercise the ability to boot “homebrew software”.
I’m pretty sure the CD trick only worked on the first (or first iterations) of DC hardware too - I forget whether they either patched out the ability to read CD’s aside from karaoke discs, or whether it was a change in CD drive or laser in manufacturing - but I didn’t see much piracy where I was.
In a case of “opposite side of the same coin” though, I remember a small surge of people buying a CD just for Bleem!, and the ability to play patched editions of PS1 games on a DC. I understand Metal Gear Solid played well on it.
Fun times.
Vine never allowed more than a 6 second clip. Other platforms immediately included short video formats upon Vines success, but added more flexibility to content creators. When content creators got “Vine famous” they moved to other platforms that allowed for flexibility in content. Vine died when it had no more creators.
It is content and content creators that make a platform successful or not. It’s why platforms like Netflix, YouTube, Twitch, etc., pay big creators millions of dollars for exclusive rights to their content. Anyone can make a content sharing platform, but they can’t take content.
They seem to be hoping that now, with AI, they can. :-|
Yeah I think paying the creators generously and allowing them to make a good living is how tiktok got off the ground so fast.
I really love the vine 6 sec sketch format but I only ever watches compilations on youtube. It’s like a box of chocolate, you never know what you’ll get, but eat enough of them… :D PS: Man this makes me nostalgic about those ancient times when everything wasn’t going to shit yet
Lol the hilarious part is I remember that, at the time, Vine was supposed to be the horrible cancer website everyone hated. Always with the ‘omfg wtf downvoted for posting Vine.’
Then like a year after it was gone all you here about it is how great it had been.
People started to romanticise myspace as soon as it was gone
I guess the data mining was the missing ingredient for popularity?
Data mining was the missing ingredient for its sustainability (in the case it is “free” and centralised. The other two options are “paid”, and “federated”.)
Once the system is sustainable that way, and the owners get greedy, they then add addiction inducing elements to the platform, designed by psychiatrists and psychologists.
That is why it is popular.
Imagine thinking that Twitter (now X) wasn’t doing data mining on vine.
Imagine thinking that any for-profit company built on VC funding won’t end up data mining.
