Twitter had announced last month that the Vine app will be shut down. Millions of Vine users have expressed grief over the news. "Vine is dead" was being passed on from one avid user to another. Other also used YouTube to voice out their disappointment over Twitter's decision. Such reactions might have made the company take a different route. A recent report suggested that Twitter is now considering to sell Vine instead of shutting it down completely.
Vine Is Fighting For Its Survival
TechCrunch has multiple sources disclose to them that Twitter is now deciding on which company Vine will be sold to. Apparently, Twitter received a large number of bids to buy Vine after the upsetting news of Vine's impending shut down. Several of them are companies from Asia. Japanese messaging company LINE is rumored to be one of the bidders.
The latest update by TechCrunch indicated that the more than 10 bidders are already cut down to about 5. Vine is still fighting for its survival. The possible new owner will spend less than $10 million to acquire Vine.
Twitter is in itself struggling with increasing its revenue and users. That amount may not suffice the company's need. However, if this is the way Vine could survive then Vine users will take it.
Vine's Future
A new owner for Vine will benefit Twitter than killing the app altogether. For instance, if it will be sold to the perfect company, it might bring Vine back to its glory. At the same time, depending on the deal, Vine content will still be viewed on Twitter. They could also still earn from sponsored content deals and attract Twitter users.
However, there is also a possible down side once the wrong owner is picked. TechCrunch pointed out that the costly archive could be shut down and break tweets with embedded Vines. These might upset users. Furthermore, it is still a losing cause if the new owner is not able to revive Vine.
The worst case is selling Vine to a company that will use the video-sharing app to compete with Twitter.
Twitter's Previous Announcement
Twitter had acquired Vine for around $30 million back in 2012. According to The Christian Science Monitor, Twitter also announced on Oct. 27 that the archive of Vine videos will be preserved on the app's website. This was not in the least bit comforting for the Vine users.
