The Creators Of Vine Are Back And Tik Tok Will Now Go Head To Head With The Pioneers
In 2013 before short looping videos were a thing on social media, Vine, a mobile application was already running the internets, providing a creative platform for social media fanatics. The platform was founded in June 2012 by Rus Yusupov and co-founders Dom Hofmann and Collin Kroll. Only a few months after launching, the trio made a decision to sell Vine to Twitter, which ended up killing the platform.
The downfall of Vine was influenced by internal pressures such as making simple product decisions, strategy clashes between the parent company and Vine as well as intimidation from other platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat both of which posed better usability. This even led to a falling apart between cofounders who later went their different ways.
Now Dom Hofmann, one of the co-founders has released Byte, a replica of Vine and is hopeful that the platform will beat the current video loop flagbearers TikTok and Instagram. “Today we’re bringing back 6-second looping videos and a new community for people who love them,” the company wrote on Twitter. “It’s called byte and it’s both familiar and new. We hope it’ll resonate with people who feel something’s been missing.” stated Byte on Twitter.
The platform, just like vine will allow the application’s camera to help create content in the form of stop-motion style videos. Also, Byte is promising a seamless payment system for content creators in what it says is just a way of celebrating creativity and the community at large. “Compensating creators is one important way we can support both.” Lack of compensation saw influencers exit Vine during Twitter’s ownership, further contributing to its closure.
Spam on Byte
With just two days of going live, Byte is already facing a spam hurdle in the comment section. Users are complaining of profane messages randomly appearing in the section. The company has come forward in admission, saying it is working on updates and the platform will be noticeably better in a short time.
As part of correction, Hoffmann has promised users a smoother video moderation and the ability to block, filter and limit comments on posts. Byte has said that it is also working on new discovery and creation features.
