Before There Was Snapchat, There Was Vine

Dom Hofmann, original co-founder of the Internet startup known as Vine, is working on a new mobile app known as v2 or V2.

His business model is simple, Hofmann plans to improve upon current video streaming mobile apps with a new company.

Vine was independently launched and acquired by Twitter in 2012. Four years later in 2016, Twitter announced that they would discontinue the posting ability for users, but still allow them to access an archive of the streaming content.

Currently Twitter still owns Vine, and with v2 Hofmann hopes to create a new company aside from his pervious startup. The main problem that I see him facing in 2018 in comparison to 2012 is the steep competition with Snapchat, Twitch (desktop app), Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook Live, and other streaming apps that have come to popularity since 2012.

One key element to his business plan is to work with popular content providers that might be upset with their current arrangement. As an example with YouTube, producers with smaller channels have become upset over their ability to not monetize their content. Hofmann has started a forum to share ideas and points of view on this topic.

The brightest minds in the tech industry realize that they don’t always have the right answers, and look to crowdsourcing for information to build a better understanding of different problems.

TechCrunch has reported:

‘There’s currently “no firm release date” but Hofmann notes v2 will debut “definitely in 2018, hopefully when it’s warm in the northern hemisphere, so that implies a Q2 Spring or Q3 Summer 2018 launch.’

This application appears to be a side project for Hofmann. His ability to continuously strive to make improvements is forward thinking overall. I find his use of allowing users to post in an open forum provides him access to acquire information for free.

Personally, I never signed up for Vine, and probably won’t be providing content on v2. The idea of producing a 2-6 second video hurts my brain. I assume that reading a 500 page book on computer coding would put a similar mental stress on Vine or v2 producers. I also do not suggest the world move to shorter and smaller attention spans. It appears that short clips are easy to consume, but if they limit societies ability to consume longer forms of content; is it really creating a better society?

My theory is that these clips dumb down people, and waste their time. I sincerely doubt a piece of valuable information can be consumed in under six seconds. In my personal experience, the most valuable pieces of content that I have seen are how to YouTube videos that lasted several minutes. Hofmann asked for feedback, and when I share this article on Twitter, I plan to add him into the post. On a positive note, if v2 can provide a link back to an article, I could support that.