Vine 1.0.5 (for iPhone)

Microblogging, meet micro-video-sharing?and all the attendant consequences that video implies. This hot new free app recently acquired by Twitter curtails your iPhone videos to a mere 6 seconds?a sort of video Instagram for Twitter?but that hasn't stopped the more prurient members of the internet community for latching on to it for risqu? purposes. Most famously, one X-rated mini movie was even featured on Vine's curated Editor's Picks section. So after less than two weeks, the company has updated the app with some safeguards, and Apple now prefaces its installer with an Adult Content warning dialog. Despite the controversy, the app still poses an existential question for everyday use: In a world where most people still think of Twitter as just short text snippets, can micro-videos catch on?

Let's be clear: This isn't a case of "video finally comes to Twitter." You've long been able to embed a DailyMotion, YouTube or Vimeo video in a Twitter post forever, so this isn't the first time anyone's been able to add video to tweets. Vine is more of an attempt to co-opt the craze for animated GIFs, most prominently evidenced on image-heavy mini-blogging site Tumblr, as well as to become the Instagram of video. ?

Vine plays to today's brief attentions spans, which causes people at a play or a concert to reach for their smartphones the moment the curtain falls at intermission, rather than trying to digest the performance. Vine movies may be limited in length, but like animated GIFs, they loop infinitely, which actually does the opposite of increasing their impact. Let's see how it stacks up against other "Instagram but for video" apps, such as Lightt and Cinemagram.

Signup and Setup
As with many hot new mobile apps, Apple's iPhone gets first dibs when it comes to Vine. After I asked the company when we might see apps for Android and Windows Phone, they only told me "We're working on bringing it to other platforms soon. Please stay tuned!"

Also, like a good many of the latest crop of iPhone apps, Vine asks whether it can interrupt you with notifications and wants access to your location, both requiring message box OKs at installation. I didn't need another source of notifications, but I though location might help for video posts.

As you'd expect with an app just acquired by Twitter, you can sign in with your Twitter account, or create a new Vine account using an email address. The typical social app would also let you sign up via Facebook, but that's not an option for obvious reasons. Conveniently, you don't need to actually provide your Twitter credentials, the app can take them from your iPhone's Settings. Despite Vine now being a part of Twitter, though, you're still prompted to agree to create a new Vine account, even if you sign up with your Twitter account.

Interface
After setup, my view was of an Instagram-like newsfeed of GIF-like videos from contacts I didn't know I had. Apparently, these were preselected Twitter employees. The well-designed and simple interface had but two buttons in the top corners above the feed?on the left Home, and on the right a movie camera. Pressing the home button offered three more options in addition to the home view I was already viewing: Explore, Activity, and Profile. These first two were encouraging, reminding me of the addictive similar pages of Flickr. More on these in a bit.

A banner ad across the top of the home screen encouraged me to get my own new Vine follows. I could find these by scanning my phone's local address book, Twitter (of course), or Facebook (surprise!). Though some reports claim that Facebook has blocked Vine from accessing it, and though I got to the Facebook permission button, an error appeared when I returned to the Vine app. Tit-for-tat for when Twitter blocked the Facebook-owned Instagram.

I could also simply search for Vine user names, or invite friends to the service using email or SMS. Each user, as with every self-respecting social network, has a profile page, and Vine's resembles Twitters, except it offers separate tabs for Posts and Likes. At top was the user's photo, a text area for inspirational self-description and a big Follow button. New for this update is the ability to report or block a profile for inappropriate posting.

The Explore page was a treat. Here I could view Editor's Picks, Popular Now, and All Posts (presumably by recency). Colorful Windows 8-like tiles in the bottom half of this page let me browse hashtags, such as #magic, #travel, and #sports. (After the recent porno controversy, some of the naughtier hashtags have been removed.) The first of these hints at the prominence of stop motion, and also features a lot of disappearing toddlers. Even the Popular Now videos weren't especially compelling, but it's early days, and no doubt there'll be plenty awesome mini-vids in the offing.

There's no website where you can view all your own and contacts' Vine videolets, so you'll only be able to see them in the app or in your Twitter feed. The videos play on the Twitter website and in the Twitter iOS apps, and in each of those places you get a link to a bare-bones Vine-hosted Web page for the video at hand.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/ZgykgYYT3Vk/0,2817,2414732,00.asp

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