Twitter announces it will discontinue Vine app

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Thursday, October 27, 2016
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Short-form video social media platform Vine will be coming to an end.

Twitter made the announcement Thursday in a blog post, saying that "in the coming months we'll be discontinuing the mobile app."

The announcement comes just hours after the company announced it would be getting rid of 9 percent of its workforce.

Users will have time to download Vine videos before it's discontinued, the blog post explained, and the website will remain online to allow existing Vine videos to be viewed.

After Twitter bought the company in 2012, it was officially launched in 2013, and since then millions of users have been creating and viewing short-form videos. Many of them are creative, funny or just plain silly, such as one of the most popular Vines of all time of this pile of squawking plastic ducks. It has been "looped" (played) more than 180 million times.

The app also spurred on the popularity of Vine stars, people whose videos were so engaging that they garnered millions of followers and in some cases reported making six-figure salaries off of their fame.

The end of Vine quickly began trending on Twitter, Vine and other social media platforms.

One of Vine's co-founders, Rus Yusupov, tweeted simply "Don't sell your company!"

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