Vine Might Still Live On -- That Is, If Twitter Sells It

Maybe it was a bit premature to bid our final farewells to Vine. More than a week ago, Twitter had made an announcement that it was shutting down Vine, the popular short video sharing platform. Needless to say, the users of the app did not take the news well, expressing their grief mostly by way of a final Vine posting (aptly). But according to a report published by TechCrunch, it appears that Twitter is currently going over various offers from other companies who apparently have an interest in acquiring Vine. If Twitter ends up Vine, the new owner may just revive the video sharing app after all.

As reported by TechCrunch, Twitter originally went through as many as 10 offers, but right now is down to just five. Some of the potential Vine buyers are companies based in Asia, and perhaps the most familiar might be Line, a mobile messaging company that hails from Japan and currently offers an app that functions similarly to WhatsApp.

It has been four years since Twitter completed its acquisition of Vine for a sum of $30 million. At that time, the creators of the Vine app had been planning to launch publicly, before Twitter swooped in and bought the very promising venture. The purchase appeared to have paid off at the outset -- Vine quickly grew to become one of the most popular media sharing platforms out there, and even produced a generation of Vine stars who regularly posted repeating six second long (mostly hilarious) videos that occasionally went viral in the interwebs. 

But over time, Vine saw its popularity diminish as other apps, like Instagram and Snapchat, started including short video functionalities in their services. Some industry watchers now think that Twitter may have not done enough in ensuring that Vine stay as popular as it was. Also, there was talk that the content creators who went viral via Vine jumped ship to YouTube and Snapchat. Thus came the beginning of the end for the platform.

After news for Vine’s discontinuation broke out, the Internet responded by compiling lists of the best Vines ever posted. Not surprisingly, the appreciation that Vine got in its last moments had the effect of renewing interest for the platform. As a result, several companies are realizing that, in their hands, they could perhaps allow Vine to live on. But due to the fact that no deal has materialized as of now, all Vine fans have at the moment is hope.