Vine - Twitter's new app that allows users to share and watch six-second loop vids - has broken its four day tweeting silence to let us all know that it's already experiencing a temporary service interruption. This, after only five days of the service having gone live, which does not bode well for the future of those who are already trying to decide whether to take a social media service that brings a looping six seconds of video seriously or not.
Although in the rapid seconds it's taken to write the preface to this article, TechCrunch (and at least one of its more persnickety commenters) has already updated saying the service is back up "for a few users," they go on to inform that, "Twitter has not confirmed that we're at full stability yet."
Whether or not Vine is up and running by the time you read this article is far less important than the fact that this is just one more pointy thorn in the extremely short-lived history of Twitter's video component.
Since having launched on Thursday, Vine's experienced issues ranging from what TechCrunch colorfully referred to as a "porn problem", to yet more "porn problems" when a naughty video clip known as "DildoPlay" (no description necessary, we hope) showed up as an "Editor's Pick" on Monday. This was clearly a mistake on the part of Twitter, which quickly chocked up the situation to "human error."
If all this funny business with sexy-time vids isn't enough, Vine tweeted that they were disabling their Twitter and Facebook sharing capabilities "temporarily"... on the same day it announced having been acquired by Twitter.
Vine was back up and running with its Twitter/Facebook sharing shortly after - "You may have noticed, but in case you didn't: we've restored sharing to Twitter and Facebook."
Really, with such tempestuous tumult in less than a week of being live, it makes one wonder why anyone even needs something that basically refashions the animated gif phenomenon of the early days? Sure, watching a roving camera blurringly move about the exterior of the NBC or an intimate moment during a stolen kiss between the President and the First Lady might be fun.
But if these "moving pictures" are going to be up and down at the capricious whim of Lady Fate anyway, I think I'd rather just check out the latest on YouTube... or maybe whatever crazy news Vine's twitter feed has up next.
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