Twitter launched the Vine video sharing app in 2013, and it was a moderate success. Other apps added similar quick video features, but Vine never seemed like a high priority for Twitter. The company announced today that it's discontinuing the Vine app in the coming months, but it's not deleting your Vines... at least not yet.

According to Twitter, it plans to leave the Vine website up and keep all existing Vines online. That means there won't be a bunch of busted video links around the web. However, you won't be able to create new Vines when the app is killed. Twitter says it will give everyone fair warning before anything changes.

While Vine is going away, Twitter itself has support for native video. That probably contributed to the decision to drop Vine. Vine was competing with Instagram, which was not a fight Twitter could win. It never figured out how to make money with Vine; Twitter's core business hasn't been easy to monetize either. Twitter can't afford distractions like Vine right now.

Source: Medium