To no one’s surprise, Elon Musk’s entry on Twitter has been hypervitaminized. This morning we learned that he wants to rethink the verified system, although it may be necessary to use it, from some point on, to be a Twitter Blue user, whose monthly fee he also wants to raise to 20 dollars. It does not seem like the best solution, although it is true that the verified system, until now, has worked quite erratically.
And now we know, per Business Insider, of another of Elon Musk’s plans for Twitter: recover Vine. And unlike what I just commented on the plan for the verified, this time I have no qualms about saying that I think it’s a great idea. Moreover, it seems to me such a successful idea that I do not understand how it is possible that this has not been done before, which in turn is the evolution of the illogical thing that seemed to me, at the time, the decision of Twitter to close the service.
In case you don’t remember him, or if you didn’t know him, Vine was a short video service (with a maximum of six seconds) bought and launched by Twitter in early 2013. In a short time, it was able to overtake Instagram in Twitter, a more than considerable milestone and, for several years, it did not stop adding features ( web version, private messages, etc.). However, the numbers (the economic ones, in this case) never turned green, and as a result, Twitter decided to shut down Vine six years ago now, in October 2016.
It is true that the economic losses were pronounced, 289 million dollars in its last quarter, and that the platform had lost “strength” against its main rivals, Instagram or Snapchat, but it is also true that the company, instead of responding to this situation trying to revive it, chose to lock the door, in a decision that, historically, has been shown to be tremendously wrong. And it is that we only have to observe the current success of TikTok, to value the entire market that could have been that of Vine.
Now, of course, the challenge is much more complicated.Well, we are talking about a more developed market, but also with a lot of very fierce competition. From the aforementioned TikTok to the successful YouTube Shorts, the short video format is, today, the preferred option of many users, especially the youngest, and entering to compete in this arena does not seem easy.
At the beginning of this year, Jack Dorsey said that the closure of Vine is the decision he regrets the most, That’s right. And now, with Elon Musk at the helm of Twitter, it might be time to reverse it. As I say, I find it difficult to gain a foothold in said market, but the simple fact of trying, also taking advantage of the Twitter user base, seems to me to be a success on the part of the billionaire.
