Vine to close as Twitter culls staff

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Vine, the six-second video app, is shutting down completely.

Owner Twitter has decided to discontinue the mobile app, apparently as part of its plan to rescue itself from its ongoing crisis.

The app and its looping, six-second videos helped define some of the aesthetic of the videos that now flood social networks like Facebook. And it helped launch a range of new stars, many of whom have now branched out into other places like Snapchat.

But Twitter said that it was closing down the app, without giving a reason.

“Since 2013, millions of people have turned to Vine to laugh at loops and see creativity unfold,” the company wrote in a blog post that came soon after Twitter released terrible results. “Today, we are sharing the news that in the coming months we’ll be discontinuing the mobile app.”

The company said that it would keep the website open so that people could see all of the videos that people have made in the past. But there’ll be no way of making or uploading new videos, since that must be done within the app.

And Vine said it would make sure that people wouldn’t lose the things they’d shared on the site.

“Nothing is happening to the apps, website or your Vines today,” the company wrote in the post. “We value you, your Vines, and are going to do this the right way. You’ll be able to access and download your Vines.

“We’ll be keeping the website online because we think it’s important to still be able to watch all the incredible Vines that have been made. You will be notified before we make any changes to the app or website.”

Vine said that it would share more information and timing on when the app would be shut down in the near future.

Vine had gradually been integrating with Twitter, and so it may be that the company thinks that all of the things Vine provided can now be done by the main Twitter service. Perhaps the most clear statement of that was the fact that Vine dropped its six-second limit, as part of a change that altered the way that Twitter videos work.