A couple weeks ago we got the news that one of the social media greats would be shutting down. Vine is dead. This is horribly depressing for me because it was, in my opinion, one of the best creations of the 21st century—I am including most of the modern medicine in this statement. There's just something about binge-watching hours of six-second videos that makes life so much more worth living. But alas, its sad demise comes as no surprise at all.
Vine is owned by Twitter, a once golden example of social media innovation, now reduced to a floundering garbage fire. Twitter isn't finished just yet, but they aren't doing well by any stretch of the imagination. Once valued at $31 billion when the company first went public in November of 2013, Twitter's stock recently reached a record low of just $17 a share. This after two key team members left in September and the news of Twitter kicking a whopping nine percent of its staff team to the curb. You don't make those kinds of cuts unless you really need to, and this doesn't bode well for Twitter. The little blue bird is struggling to be profitable and unless they innovate big time, they won't be around much longer. It's sad but true.
The problem is that they just can't compete. Twitter continues to pander to certain groups, but won't—or can't—innovate to keep up with platforms like Instagram. Give it a couple months, or at best, years and Twitter will go the way of MySpace and Xanga. Believe it if you want, or don't. Twitter is dying and Vine is dead—a little blue birdie told me.
