Twitter debuts its video creation app called Vine

Make six-second long videos that can be embedded into tweets

Months after an unconfirmed report that Twitter had purchased video hosting start-up Vine, the social network finally announced Thursday that the app has debuted.

Vine allows users to create and share six second long looping videos that can be embedded into tweets, or uploaded onto a separate Vine web page. Using the app is easy: a users taps the screen to record their video and then lifts their finger to stop recording.

"Today, we’re introducing Vine: a mobile service that lets you capture and share short looping videos," Michael Sippey, VP of Product at Twitter, wrote in a blogpost Thursday. "Like Tweets, the brevity of videos on Vine (6 seconds or less) inspires creativity. Now that you can easily capture motion and sound, we look forward to seeing what you create."

Back in October, it was reported that that Twitter had purchased Vine, but when contacted at the time Twitter told VatorNews that it could not comment. Vine officially confirmed for the first time that it had been purchased by Twitter in a blogpost Thursday.

"We're also happy to share the news that Vine has been acquired by Twitter. Our companies share similar values and goals; like Twitter, we want to make it easier for people to come together to share and discover what's happening in the world," Vine co-founder and General Manager Dom Hofmann wrote. "We also believe constraint inspires creativity, whether it's through a 140-character Tweet or a six-second video."

Here are some examples of how Vine works (the videos loop over and over, so if they start to annoy you, just right click and hit "pause" to stop them):

Steak tartare in six seconds. vine.co/v/bOIqn6rLeIDvia @dhof

— dick costolo (@dickc) January 23, 2013

Holding hands at Tilden park vine.co/v/biTaEEwdq2n?1

— James Buckhouse (@buckhouse) January 24, 2013

Flickbook vine.co/v/bMp2XwKaHFQ

Flickbook vine.co/v/bMp2XwKaHFQ

— David Grayson Kenyon (@dGrayk) January 24, 2013

“Posts on Vine are about abbreviation — the shortened form of something larger. They’re little windows into the people, settings, ideas and objects that make up your life,” Hofmann wrote. “They’re quirky, and we think that’s part of what makes them so special."

Right now Vine is only available on iOS and in the App Store, but Twitter says that it is "working now to bring it to other platforms, so stay tuned for that."

Why get into video?

Debuting its own video app is news of yet another example of Twitter’s recent emphasis on getting rid of third party apps in favor of its own internal services, which began with its new API guidelines, launched  back in June.

The guidelines stated that applications that have more at least 100,000 users will have to work directly with Twitter on their product, policies and service agreement. Those that already have more than 100,000 user can only grow to 200% of their current size before they will contact Twitter.

In September, Buzzfeed reported that Twitter would be removing support for third party image hosts, such as Twitpic and yfrog, from its official apps. (Of course, as we all remember, Instagram did the opposite to Twitter in December, disabling photo ingratation inside tweets so that users would have to instead will link back to Instagram.com.)

There is no indication regarding whether Twitter has any plans to take similar steps with third party video hosts, such as like TwitVid and Vodpod, but it would seem likely that a similar move would come somewhere down the road now that Twitter has its own video creation app.

(Image source: https://itunes.apple.com)