Elon Musk has reportedly instructed Twitter engineers to work on reviving the once-popular but now-discontinued video-sharing platform, Vine. The initiative comes amidst Musk’s recent Twitter poll, which asked users if Vine deserves a comeback.
During its heyday, Vine was one of the internet’s most popular video-sharing sites. It was acquired by Twitter in 2012, and it even became the No. 1 app on the iTunes App Store. At one point, it had over 200 million active users, but it eventually saw a decline.
Twitter ultimately shuttered Vine four years later in 2016, much to the dismay of the platform’s users. Vine co-founder Rus Yusupov later shared his regret in a post on Twitter, noting “Don’t sell your company!” Later reports suggested that Twitter tried to sell Vine as well.
According to a report from Axios, Twitter engineers have already been assigned by Musk’s team to look at Vine’s code base, which has remained unchanged or updated since the platform was shut down in 2016. One of the publication’s sources noted that “it needs a lot of work.” Axios also noted that the Vine reboot could be ready this year.
Elon Musk has reportedly been considering a revival of Vine in the months leading up to his acquisition of the social media platform. This culminated on a Twitter poll on Sunday, when Musk asked users of the social media platform if the video-sharing app is worth reviving. Twitter users voted in favor of reviving Vine, with 69.6% voting “Yes” and 30.4% voting “No.”
Musk seems to be open to taking suggestions on a revamped Vine. Following his poll, YouTube creator Mr. Beast commented that it would be hilarious if Vine eventually became a competitor to the popular video-sharing app TikTok. Musk responded by asking what could be done to make Vine more attractive to users than TikTok.
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