Elon Musk Wants To Revive Vine, Former Engineer Advises Otherwise
Elon Musk’s first week at Twitter has seen significant changes to its board of directors, placing the blue tick behind a firewall—and now, the possible resurrection of the much-loved video app, Vine.
Vine first shut down in 2016 after Twitter bought the company to bring its technology onto the platform. Vine, for many, was the original TikTok and might have been the app that sparked short-form video content creation and consumption.
Its loss was significantly noticed in the social media sphere, leaving many influencers and the general public demanding its return. Of course, in its place came TikTok instead, as Musk might have been a few years too late now with its supposed revival.
However, despite his overzealous plans, it does seem like the world wants the platform back. He hosted a poll on his account, which 5 million people voted on, resulting in 75% of people saying yes to his proposal.
Bring back Vine?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2022
In fact, under his post, old Vine creators such as Zach King responded with much enthusiasm to the billionaire’s plans. YouTuber Mr Beast even chimed in, noting that if it did happen, its competition with TikTok would be “hilarious.” Plus, given the way so many platforms are now imitating TikTok, could the original video app Vine be the thing to knock it off its podium?
With that came advice from a former senior software engineer at Vine, Sarah Beykpour, who stated that the coding on the app was six to 10 years old.
Bekypour, who was also the senior director of product management at Twitter up till December 2021, when she left the company after working there for 12 years, said that if Musk intended to bring it back, he would need to start from scratch, as she was also one of the people who led the platform’s shutdown.
some free advice, from someone who worked at Vine and also led the shutdown of Vine.
— sara beykpour (@pandemona) October 31, 2022
This code is 6+ years old. Some of it is 10+. You don't want to look there. If you want to revive Vine, you should start over.
trust me on this one guys ✌ï¸ðŸŒ± https://t.co/knM0mKM3Xf
GSMArena.com adds that changing APIs, security protocols, and other factors will be too much of a hassle with an old code. Instead, Musk might be better off delegating a department to reinvent the video app.
Though there is some solid advice backing him up, it’s still unclear if he will take it into account and follow it.
[via NBC News and GSMArena.com, images via various sources]
