Sources: Elon Musk told Twitter engineers to work on a Vine reboot that may be ready by the end of 2022; Twitter acquired Vine in 2012 and shut it down in 2016

Elon Musk has instructed Twitter engineers to work on a Vine reboot that could be ready by year end, multiple sources tell Axios.

Axios 2022-11-01

Context & Ripple Effects

Vine had already been wound down rather than sold: Twitter considered buyer interest, then shifted it into a Vine Camera relaunch and later preserved its posts in a creator-focused archive. Musk's reported engineering directive puts the product back on Twitter's roadmap rather than leaving it as an archival brand.

The move also foreshadows Vine's later reuse inside X: Musk subsequently tied the returning archive to Grok Imagine as an “AI Vine” offering for Premium+ subscribers.

First-order effects

Twitter engineers must allocate product work to rebuilding Vine, reviving a brand Twitter had previously reduced to a camera app and archive.
Vine's archived catalog and creator identity become operational product assets again, rather than solely a preservation effort.

Second-order effects

A Vine relaunch would give Twitter another short-video surface to integrate with its existing social product, forcing the company to decide whether the brand is a standalone destination or a feature within Twitter.
The later Premium+-linked “AI Vine” framing suggests the reboot work creates an avenue to connect short-form creation with X's paid product tier, not merely restore the old archive.

Third-order effects

If Vine is repeatedly revived through new product layers, legacy social-video brands may be retained as reusable distribution and creation assets rather than treated as permanently discontinued products.
The pattern points toward short-form video shifting from a standalone social format toward an AI-assisted, subscription-linked feature set within larger platforms.

The trend: Platforms are repurposing dormant creator brands and archives as inputs to new short-form, AI-enabled product experiences.

Discussion

@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
Bring back Vine?
@danprimack Dan Primack on x
Scoop w/ @sarafischer: Twitter engineers have been instructed to look at the old Vine code, with hopes that Vine could be revived by year-end. https://www.axios.com/...
@pandemona Sara Beykpour on x
some free advice, from someone who worked at Vine and also led the shutdown of Vine. This code is 6+ years old. Some of it is 10+. You don't want to look there. If you want to revive Vine, you should start over. trust me on this one guys ✌️🌱 https://twitter.com/...
@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
Some news from inside Elon's war room: Twitter is strongly considering making verified users pay $4.99 a month to keep their badges. Many questions remain. Subscribe to read ➡️ https://www.platformer.news/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@mrbeast @mrbeast on x
@elonmusk If you did that and actually competed with tik tok that'd be hilarious
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
I have also heard this, though unclear if Vine will actually be relaunched at this point. Musk also has a lot of people telling him to just bake the experience into core Twitter. https://twitter.com/...
@mrbeast @mrbeast on x
@elonmusk No one is original anymore, whatever you do will be on every other platform the next month unless it has a deep moat. YouTube has shorts, insta has reels, Reddit, Snapchat, Facebook, etc. all copied TT. Whatever u do make it hard to copy or it's a waste of time imo
@simonyusea Simon Yu on x
This might actually justify the valuation now https://twitter.com/...
@loudmouthjulia Julia Alexander on x
Twitter has advantage of not being a Chinese-led company, which may appeal to some advertisers/users. Short form video circulated well on Twitter without Twitter making money off it. But nostalgia alone doesn't make a user base. He has to make Vine as Twitter cool, which is hard …
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x
The Vine code is so old that it would be faster and smarter to rewrite it from scratch than resurrecting dead code from 2017. Also TikTok spent $1B a year in ads to grow its user base. I don't see how Twitter can afford to bootstrap a new video social network as a separate app. h…
@albertwenger Albert Wenger on x
Shuttering Vine was a mistake by Twitter — rebooting it could work out well, especially if the US government decides to clamp down on TikTok https://twitter.com/...
@wongmjane Jane Manchun Wong on x
Just recompile the Vine project with the latest Xcode, and you're done! I don't know what these Twits are doing, just press that damn “Build” button. Just hire me bruh, I can take this “maneuver” all by myself over a coffee break with no extra help - some replies, probably https:…
@danrue_ig DanRue on x
Yes plzzz I can have fun making 7 second videos again lol https://twitter.com/...
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x
I guess everything I've learned about product management is wrong and we should have been making decisions via Twitter poll this entire time 😁 https://twitter.com/...
@mmasnick Mike Masnick on x
This reboot of Silicon Valley is way, way, way funnier than the original. https://twitter.com/...
@chadfowler @chadfowler on x
Could be extrapolated and applied to any software rotting in the closet. Also, code is a liability. The system (and product) are the asset. https://twitter.com/...
@charles_gaba Charles Ghoul-ba on x
Friendster FTW! https://twitter.com/...
@theromit Romit Mehta on x
If you want a video longer than 6 seconds it will be $3 for each additional chunk of 6 seconds. If you are certified/verified @ $20/mo, you get 12 seconds and after that, $2/additional 12. https://t.co/VGPQTzLaQQ
@pkafka Peter Kafka on x
A better idea then making users pay to make content. Alas! Still not great, because who's going to make Vines instead of TikToks? YouTube and Instagram have giant audiences and are resorting to brute force to make their TikTok clones work. Twitter doesn't have that available. htt…
@jpbrammer @jpbrammer on x
this is the plot of Mewtwo's origin story https://twitter.com/...
@ethank Ethan Kaplan on x
Vine's entire source code leaked in 2016. He could have saved himself $44b instead of trying to resurrect a dead product no one used? Written in an old version of Python on a MySQL database. Imagine getting that working again https://amp.thehackernews.com/ ... https://twitter.com…
@gpingersoll Geoffrey Ingersoll on x
I've always thought it was incredible that Twitter bought — essentially TikTok — Vine, it was immensely popular, then they killed it, then China cloned it and renamed it, and now kids' brains are turning to pudding. https://twitter.com/...
@jamesrbuk James Ball on x
Wouldn't you just create a six second looping video mode on the modern Twitter architecture? That feels a lot quicker than reviving old code? https://twitter.com/...
@igorbobic Igor Bobic on x
would pay $20 a month for Vine https://twitter.com/...
@toadpacshakur ToadPac Shakur on x
The fact he didn't fast-track a reboot of Fleets says all you need to know about how well @WoozleWuzzle_ dominated the format to the point no one wanted to compete https://twitter.com/...
@jacobrubashkin Jacob Rubashkin on x
I take it back, Elon Twitter is good now https://twitter.com/...
@edzitron Ed Zitron on x
I am deadly serious when I say this is going to be a business Elon pushes hard and tries to use to compete with TikTok. And I think it might work! Who knows. If I'm wrong it's not like it matters. One day we all return to the earth https://twitter.com/...
@brandonwenerd Brandon Wenerd on x
I'm far from a musk stan and had my issues with what Vine became in a pre-TikTok world, but reading the room - this is genuinely great idea. https://twitter.com/...
@samsheffer Sam Sheffer on x
we're getting a vine reboot in 2022? IMAGINE!? https://twitter.com/...
@frankthorp Frank Thorp V on x
*whispers* I mean, I really liked Vine... https://twitter.com/...
@arawnsley Adam Rawnsley on x
Not sure Vine works in the era of TikTok. Music licensing is what helped light the fire for TikTok. Also, 7 second limit is probably too tight https://twitter.com/...
@lindsaywigo Lindsay Wigo on x
Don't play me like this https://twitter.com/...
@teddyschleifer Teddy Schleifer on x
like Elon tweeted he was thinking about this last night! https://www.axios.com/...
@fmanjoo Farhad Manjoo on x
huh. vine was ahead of its time! https://twitter.com/...
@realtimvine Tim Vine on x
Excuse me I never went anywhere. https://twitter.com/...

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