Twitter shutting down Vine app

Vine is a short-form video sharing service. File photo

Twitter’s venture with the short-video sharing site Vine is officially over.

After purchasing Vine for a reported $30 million in 2012,  the social media giant revealed that it’s shutting down the looping video app within the coming weeks.

According to the company’s official statement, the website and apps will remain the same for the meantime and users will be given sometime to download their videos before its official closure.

“You’ll be able to access and download your Vines,” the post read. “We’ll be keeping the website online because we think it’s important to still be able to watch all the incredible Vines that have been made. You will be notified before we make any changes to the app or website.”

The ensuing closure even shocked Vine co-founder Rus Yusupov on Twitter.

Don’t sell your company!

— Rus (@rus) October 27, 2016

It remains unclear how long the Vine videos will be live on the website, but creation of its signature six-second mobile clips has already been halted for the time being.

Twitter has been noticeably promoting its Periscope product in recent months, and has been focusing live streaming rather than the short looping videos.

Furthermore, the notice did not divulge the reason behind the sudden closure, but it’s been noted that Vine has been struggling to keep marketers’ attention in recent years.

The once popular app lost its luster and found it hard to compete with Instagram, Snapchat and even YouTube—which boasted updates similar to Vines’ stand-alone short-form video montage.

Instagram added video in 2013, while Snapchat’s rise only further damaged Vine’s chances at long-term success.

Just last year, downloads of the Vine app suffered a 55-percent decline on both the Apple App Store and Google Play, according to Sensor Tower’s data.

At its peak in 2012, Vine started off as the No. 1 downloaded app on the iTunes App Store and had more than 200 million active users.  Khristian Ibarrola