Byte is the successor to Vine, launching in 2019

Vine, the 6-second video loop platform is set to make a comeback. Dom Hofmann, one of the original creators of Vine had last year floated the idea of creating a successor to Vine, dubbed V2, eventually shelving the idea due to financial and legal issues. However, he has now tweeted that his new project goes live in Spring 2019 and will be called Byte. Vine was created in June of 2012 by Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll and even before the service launched publically, it was acquired by Twitter in October 2012. 

Vine officially launched on January 24, 2013, as a free app for iOS devices, with an Android version launching on June 2, 2013. Within a few months, Vine had become the most used video sharing application in the market, despite a low adoption of the app. Vine also went on to become the most downloaded free app on the iOS store, surpassing Instagram on Play Store and also being listed in Time Magazine’s top 50 apps for Android. However, Twitter in 2016 announced the discontinuation of the app’s service in stages, with the Vine community website being eventually shut down in 2017. 

This is the time around when creator Dom Hofmann floated the idea of V2, the successor to Vine. His tweet has now confirmed that in Spring of 2019, we will meet Byte, the successor to Vine which, so far, seems to be functionally the same. 6-Second looped videos will be the primary content on the platform. 

What we don’t know are the new features (if any) that will be a part of Byte. We have already seen Music.ally (now known as Tik Tok) become extremely popular amongst the young, so there is definitely an audience for an app like Byte. Interestingly, YouTube is full of Vine video compilations, racking up views day after day.  In his Twitter post, Hofmann does clarify that this time around, Byte has nothing to do with Twitter. If you’re interested in keeping up to date with Byte, you can follow them on Twitter and Instagram as @byte_app.