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Ask HN: What is the story behind Vine

8 points by alimoeeny ↗ HN
Really curious to know, how Vine is getting so much attention, the app does look unpolished, they don't seem to have lots of active users, and event not a web site (just a few pages) or android app yet, I understand the idea is cool, but if I wanted to replicate their success I need to know their secret sause.

13 comments

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smalter
Vine was created by Twitter.

That should answer all of your questions.

alimoeeny
created or acquired ?
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bernatfp
It was acquired by Twitter just before the public release
unreal37
Vine has exploded in my Facebook and Twitter feeds over the past 4 days. Seems everyone is "trying it". Whether or not that will translate into real traction, it's hard to say.

But I don't think "they don't seem to have lots of active users" is true.

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gyardley
Vine is getting attention in part because it was acquired by Twitter, and is Twitter's move in the video space.

However, Vine got acquired by Twitter because it took something that was rather complicated - editing short video - and made it really easy through the use of constraints and simplification. (They were also well connected enough to get an early version in front of Jack Dorsey, and he got excited enough about it to persuade Twitter to buy them immediately.)

If you want to replicate their success, you could start by finding something that people would like to do but is currently too hard, and then by stripping enough things away from it to make it really simple and intuitive. Sounds easier than it is, though.

alimoeeny
Huh! very interesting, In my naive mind, lack of a proper video editing tool was their point of weakness, I thought to myself, they even have not yet bothered to let you load your own videos and cut them and upload them. Very interesting.
will_brown
>They were also well connected enough to get an early version in front of Jack Dorsey

I wrote a post about this phenomenon here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5049409. I call it the "magical introduction" in my post, I quote:

"....all the media exposure and growth opportunities that naturally follow all as a result of a magical 'introduction.'"

Sadly, "magical introductions" often get in the way of the best products rising to the top, or even having a fair shot to begin in a lot of cases. Vine is a perfect example where a product was acquired by Twitter before even launching, but as a result when Vine launches it is instantly dubbed the "Instagram of Video" in every news outlet. See the Google News search result for Instagram of Video.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws...

onlyup
6 second vidoes? Big meh from me but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
arn
6 seconds is definitely a feature, imo.

Think of them as Harry-Potter-esque animated photos, not videos.