A guide to Twitter’s Vine – the six second video sharing application

Vine is the recent development from the mega social networking site Twitter, and is basically an app for sharing videos. With more than 500 million Twitter members, there is no doubt that Vine will take off in a big way! To use Vine, you simply need to download the app, sign up or log in with your Twitter username and password, and share up to six seconds of video. The concept is still micro-blogging, only for video in this case.

Vine takes short videos to a whole new level. The six second limit no doubt opens doors to more creativity, quirkiness and craziness. You can share pretty much anything you like with your friends and family. Ideally, the six second video should be fun to watch, and really tell people what you are all about. In the true spirit of Twitter, Vine is all about sharing material in bit-sized pieces that people can easily digest. The options are virtually limitless with this video sharing app.

So what is ‘Vine’ all about?
Vine originally was an operation run by a small team of three developers. It was acquired by Twitter recently, and is positioned as a stand-alone application rather than being totally integrated into Twitter’s set up. Twitter users can now easily share small videos, taking micro blogging to the next level.

Who is it available for?
As of now, Vine is available at the Apple App store, meaning that it is more of an app for iPod, iPad and iPhone users. It is a dedicated app that is linked to your twitter account.

It is expected that Vine will soon be available for other platforms as well. Reliable sources (Michael Sippey to be specific) point to Vine being available on a wider scale in the near future.

How does Vine work?
Vine is a really basic and simple app to use. Think of instagram, only for videos this time round. All you need to do is download the app, which as previously mentioned, is available to users on the Apple App Store. You will find that the app is easy to sign into as you can use your Twitter account that is synced on your device.

There is a camera icon at the top-right corner in the app that you simply tap on to begin recording. You will however need to keep one finger on the screen during the entire recording process, as taking your finger off stops the recording. You can start recording again by putting your finger back on the screen. Essentially, you can sequence and cut videos easily on the app. It is easy to use and will no doubt be a lot of fun to see what people come up with!