Users who have finally got used to expressing their thoughts in 140 characters will soon have a new challenge — shooting video no longer than six seconds.
Twitter Chief Dick Costolo has posted what might be the first true ‘video-tweet’, using Vine, the video service Twitter acquired in late 2012.
The short video — a few seconds long and complete with audio-marks the first time a video can be embedded in the tweet itself and indicates that a full rollout might be forthcoming.
However, keeping in tune with the philosophy of social media, Vine doesn’t allow users to post videos longer than six seconds.
“[Vine is] is the best way to see and share life in motion,” its website says. “Create beautiful looping videos in a fun way, then share with your friends and family.” According to media reports, however, Vine (when it launches) will be initially available only as a standalone application from the Apple store. It could be integrated later into the Twitter service. An app of this kind could compete directly with photo service Instagram, which was bought by Facebook last year for $1 billion.
“This is clearly meant to be to video, what Instagram was to photographs. It is aimed at competing with all other apps that allow you to tweet short-form videos and is without doubt linked to the future success of Twitter. Just think of the possibilities!,” said Vijay Nagaraj, Gartner analyst.
“However, as others have pointed out, the video that was posted keeps looping. While I’m sure it will be polished before it’s officially out, it could be annoying when a user logs onto to see a stream of looping videos,” he added.
