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Because it had the potential to create a community around it. If they just wanted the feature they could easily have built it into Twitter for less than $30M.
by dasil003 10y ago
Because it had the potential to create a community around it. If they just wanted the feature they could easily have built it into Twitter for less than $30M. What made Vine work is the same thing that made Instagram work: a killer app. If Viners had to compete with everyone else on Twitter their work would have been too diluted to get traction, and you wouldn't have seen the same creativity and commitment.
- philsnow 10y agoCritically, the vine community is a younger demographic. Maybe Twitter wanted to keep them separate because they didn't want an eternal September killing the "bird in the hand" Twitter community.
- Kadin 10y agoThat Vine's userbase consisted largely of younger people probably should have given Twitter pause, and in retrospect might have made them rethink that $30M valuation. Those are the same users who are most likely to drop your service overnight when it becomes uncool, for reasons that may never be clear or make sense. (See also: Myspace.)
- _pmf_ 10y ago> Because it had the potential to create a community around it. How is "having the potential to create a community around it" (and failing) more valuable than catering to the actually existing Twitter community?
- dasil003 10y agoBecause people would actually use it. A feature which no one uses is worthless. I'm not saying I agree with the strategy, but you can't really say it failed. For a $30M acquisition it was quite a value as it exploded in subsequent years, it would have easily been approaching a $1B valuation at its peak, it only petered out in the last couple years. I really can't see how building a looping video feature into Twitter would have achieved that kind of reach (of course it would also have been hard to measure)