Vine, the micro-video sharing app, may well survive oblivion after all. Announcements were made last month that Twitter would be discontinuing the mobile app. Now it seems that multiple companies have approached the social network vying to purchase Vine, including a number from Asia.
While details of the bidders remains a closely guarded secret, information provided by TechCrunch suggest that among those rumored was a Japanese messaging and gaming company LINE. Further research uncovered that Twitter is likely to have narrowed their pool of potential purchasers from 10 down to 5,
Rumours suggest that a proportion of the offers are below the $10 million mark, meaning that Twitter is unlikely to generate significant revenue from its sale unless the right buyer is found. To put that into perspective, The New York Times recently reported that the running costs of Vine in terms of infrastructure and employees was over $10 million a month and had considered selling it off to cut costs.
Upon announcement of Twitter’s intention to do away with the app, an FAQ page appears giving more detail about what exactly would happen to the network. It stated that it intended on eventually shutting down the app but retaining an archive of all current Vines playable, while giving users the option to download their content.
Now it appears Twitter have gone quiet regarding the future of Vine – an unsurprising move with it being in current talks about its sale. Ideally, we would imagine the ideal purchaser would be someone who intends on retaining, to a certain extent, an integration between in and the social network as Vines remain a highly-regarded style of content that commands a large amount of engagement by users.
Much speculation has been made regarding the future of the network since the announcement of its discontinuation. Only time will tell as to what destiny has in store for the app.
