After months of speculation, Vine founder Dom Hoffman announced on Friday, May 4, that the former social media app's successor, V2, has been delayed indefinitely.
What Is V2?
Vine was a short-form social media video app that launched in 2013. Twitter bought the app before it was released. In 2017, Twitter officially discontinued the service due to financial pitfalls and competition from other apps such as Instagram.
Many former Vine users were disappointed that the app was gone, and some launched a petition to bring it back. In November 2017, Hoffman announced that a sequel to Vine, called V2, would be launched.
Instead of calling it Vine 2, Hoffman decided to use V2 because the name "Vine" was still legally owned by Twitter.
V2 would have many of the same features as its predecessor, but there would be some changes, such as a stricter approach to moderation. By January 2018, V2 was in a very limited alpha testing stage, and Hoffman was hopeful that it would launch by the summer of 2018.
Postponing V2
In a detailed message posted to the app's online community, Hoffman revealed that V2 would be delayed indefinitely.
"When I announced that I was working on a follow-up to Vine, I also (perhaps foolishly) announced that it would be a personal project and personally funded," Hoffman wrote. "I underestimated the amount of enthusiasm and attention the announcement would generate. The interest has been extremely encouraging, but it has also created some roadblocks. Taking into account a larger-than-expected audience, we now know that the estimated costs for the first few months alone would be very high, way beyond what can be personally funded."
With increasing legal fees, Hoffman realized that the project lacked long-term funding to keep it sustainable. He is also currently running an early-stage startup company called Interspace VR, which is reportedly taking up most of his time.
He also cited a bit of "sequelitis" as another reason for the big delay.
What's Next?
Although V2 will not be operational anytime soon, there is still some hope. Hoffman said that all of the code for V2 still exists.
"I'm very, very sorry for the disappointment," he wrote. "If it's any consolation, I think it would have been even more disappointing if this service had been developed and released incorrectly, which is where we were headed. I'd like for us to get it right."
Hoffman also suggested that users who miss Vine could still use some of the other video apps that are currently available.
Photo: Esther Vargas | Flickr
