Why Twitter’s New Video App Vine, Is Not So Fine?

Last Thursday Twitter launched its new video App Vine, available only for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Why is Vine it not so fine yet?

You have probably heard about Twitter and Vine? Good. But trust me, we are not a news blog.

We share insights and our opinions: our subjective beliefs that are a result of our knowledge, experience, emotions and our interpretations of facts.

Last week Twitter CEO Dick Costolo tweeted a teaser about the new video service Vine, telling how it could show videos in “inline” tweets directly. That same day Twitter announced Vine officially and it revealed the Vine-App for iPhone and iPod Touch.

And I must say, Twitter with photos and videos is much better than just “plain text”:

Vine allows users to shoot and share 6 second-long looping video clips. That constraint, Twitter said, meshes with its 140-character-or-less model for Tweets.

But I’m not worried about the micro-videos.

That micro-video trend we already predicted in 2011, in our story How micro-video can fuel brand storytelling.

The way Vine was launched by Twitter, reveals Twitter’s weaknesses: Poor workflow and iteration processes. Mistakes you may expect from rookie students or start-up creative digital boutique agencies. Certainly not from a SWAT-team, which you would expect to be present at a global interest network.

The Vine product integration was simply not fully completely tested and de-bugged enough to get a green light or “go-live”. So far I have detected already a lot of one-star-reviews about Vine. The App is still buggy and only available in the iTunes store, leaving out a large mobile audience.

Maybe it would have been smarter for Costello and his team at Twitter to partner-up with an existing and proven micro-video platform?

More important and rather unprofessional was the fact that Vine broke Privacy guidelines and our rules of engagement. Being able to see another user’s private contact information (including unlisted e-mail and phone number), that looked rather stupid.

And it is something you might expect from Facebook’s Zuck and the rest of his SF gang?

Talking about that gang, Facebook’s rant against Twitter certainly ain’t over yet. In stage one Facebook ordered Instagram to pull the plug from its Twitter-service.

That left Twitter for a while without photos, but luckily the cool blue bird soon had a new photo-feature installed.

Now Zuck also ordered Facebook to block Twitter’s new video-app Vine:

My Opinion?
Twitter, get your act together. When you launch such an important new feature, test it better next time. This approach could cause you bad PR.

Facebook, you blue monster social network, when will you finally stop harassing the sympathetic “blue bird” interest network called Twitter?

Facebook, your approach towards Twitter is becoming a bit embarrassing for our industry. So please start showing some leadership, stop acting like a spoiled little princess.

What About You?
You will probably have your own thoughts or feelings after reading this story? I’d love to read and discuss them with you in the comments below.

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About the Author
Igor Beuker was CMO at 3 listed companies, chairman at the IAB, jury member at Webby, AMMA and Esprix awards, founder of 3 digital agencies (sold to WPP) and global chief social officer at Mindshare. Now he is ‘freejack’ consultant and a sought after keynote speaker.