TWITTER CUTS VINE OFF

Today’s announcement that Twitter would begin phasing out its video-sharing service Vine came as a bitter expectation to us at Norton. While Vine has observed a substantive share of teens’ media consumption,¹ its Alexa Rank has dwindled consistently over the years and aggressively since the beginning of 2016. Its current Alexa ranks stand at 2,258 global and 1,021 U.S.^2,3

Much of Vine’s popularity has involved a messianic devotion to star personalities, whose “Vine universe” has created an entire aesthetic genre of video production. With the platform’s demise, where does the Vine personality stand?

Vine’s top 5 celebrities^4,5—KingBach, Lele Pons, Brittany Furlan, Rudy Mancuso, and Nash Grier—have capitalized on the platform to make their way into the entertainment industry, and to much success.⁶ Andrew Bachelor (King Bach) has used Vine to attract TV opportunities, as well as brand integrations with Samsung. Furlan has landed a sketch comedy show produced by Seth Green. Grier has broken into the film industry while endorsed by Virgin Mobile. Another popular Vine star, Shawn Mendes, leveraged the platform to launch his singing career; Mendes’s first studio album Handwritten (2015) debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart.

Stars were born.

[1] Pew Research Center measured in April 2015 that 24% of teens 13-17 used Vine. By comparison, 71% used Facebook, 52% used Instagram, 41% used Snapchat, and 33% used Twitter. See: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-social-media-technology-2015/.

[2] http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/vine.co.

[3] By comparison, YouTube’s rank is 2 global and 2 U.S.; Facebook’s Alexa rank is 3 global and 3 U.S.; Twitter’s rank is 9 global and 7 U.S.; Instagram’s rank is 15 global and 13 U.S; Tumblr’s rank is 40 global and 17 U.S.; and Pinterest’s rank is 38 global and 19 U.S. See www.alexa.com.

[4] https://rankzoo.com/vine_users.

[5] http://www.businessinsider.com/30-top-vine-stars-in-the-world-2016-6.

[6] http://edit.adweek.com/news-gallery/technology/these-web-stars-are-beyond-vine-famous-160125