Twitter has acquired mobile video app Vine and is now enabling users on iOS devices to capture and send short looping videos through their Twitter streams. Vine videos can be as long as six seconds, include audio, and have the same visual fidelity as the video camera on the iPhone and iPad. Users will be able to follow other Vine users’ clips and discover content from users independently from Twitter, similar to what Instagram is doing now that it’s part of Facebook.
Vine’s blog said of its integration into Twitter, “We want to make it easier for people to come together to share and discover what’s happening in the world. We also believe constraint inspires creativity, whether it’s through a 140-character tweet or a six-second video.”
Vine has potential to become a vital vehicle for marketers and brands, as a new way to share brand stories with consumers. It wouldn’t be surprising if the brief videos become a new video ad format, giving Twitter a visual vehicle to sell to advertisers and enhance its current offerings such as promoted tweets. That’s another similarity between what Vine brings Twitter and what Instagram has done for Facebook. The Vine app is currently in the App Store.
What do you think, will Vine give Twitter a marketing tool as impactful as what Instagram brought Facebook We’d love to see your comments below.
