thearchivist.funVine becomes an archive and a camera
On 27 October 2016 Vine said on its blog that it would discontinue the mobile app 'in the coming months'. Nothing changed that day, the post said. The website would stay online so people could keep watching the Vines made, and users would be able to download their own. The next steps were reported later. 9to5Google wrote on 4 January 2017 that on 17 January the app would turn into Vine Camera, which makes 6.5-second looping videos that can be posted to Twitter or saved to the camera roll, but does not share to a Vine community. After that date vine.co becomes an archive of what users created, and downloads had to be done before the switch. The record of Vine therefore shifted from a living feed to a static one. Short loops were kept, but the replies, the following and the way people found them were not.
Context and provenance
An archive page of loops is not the same thing as the community that produced them. The shutdown notice promised that the videos would remain watchable; it did not promise that the feed, the comments or the order in which people saw them would stay. A fan site or compilation will always be an arrangement of those clips, not a restoration.
A Vine clip can exist in three forms: the original on vine.co, a downloaded file saved by its maker, and a re-upload elsewhere. Each has different evidence of date and authorship. Prefer the maker's file or the archive page, and treat compilations as a secondary arrangement that may have been edited or re-ordered.
Transmission timeline
- 2016-10-27
Vine announces that the mobile app will be discontinued.
- 2017-01-04
9to5Google reports the 17 January date and the Vine Camera plan.
- 2017-01-17
The Vine app becomes Vine Camera; vine.co becomes an archive.
Why it matters
Vine's ending kept the clips on a website but removed the social structure that made them circulate.
What remains uncertain
Whether every Vine remained reachable on the archive site was not verified. The origin of the six-second format is covered by a separate record.
Sources and evidence
- Vine on Medium: Important news about Vine
Discontinuing the mobile app, website to remain, ability to access and download Vines.
- 9to5Google: Vine shutdown date
17 January 2017 switch to Vine Camera, vine.co as an archive, download deadline, 6.5-second looping on Twitter.
Editorial review: 2026-10-22. New evidence may change this account.