The folks behind video-sharing app Vine revealed on Tuesday its user base now stands at 40 million, way up from the 13 million it reported in June.
The Twitter-owned app launched on iOS in January of this year, with an Android release five months later providing a major boost to its registered-user figures.
However, the company behind the app, which lets users share looping videos of up to six seconds, doesn’t give any data on the number of active users. Without the all-important active user figures, it’s difficult to draw too many conclusions from Vine’s announcement, though at least the numbers appear to be heading in the right direction for the company.
We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again: this community – now more than 40 million of you – is amazing. Thank you for inspiring us.
— Vine (@vineapp) August 20, 2013
When Instagram added video functionality to its photo-sharing app a couple of months back, many thought Vine would take a hit. While data from analytics firm Topsy suggested this to be the case, with shares of Vine links dropping sharply in the days following Instagram’s video launch, more recent Topsy data shows both services holding steady. However, three-year-old Instagram, with its user base of 130 million active users, is still clearly the more widely used service, for now at least.
More competition in the mobile short-video space appeared this month with the arrival of MixBit, created by YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. While Vine gives video creators up to 6 seconds to play with, and Instagram 15, MixBit of course opted for a different number: 16.
The iOS app – an Android version expected anytime now – offers a number of features to set it apart from its main rivals. For example, it allows you to stitch together up to 256 clips to make an hour-long video, and also lets you remix clips made by others users to create an entirely new video.
It’s still early days for these short-video apps, and with more no doubt on the way, and with each offering something a little different, it’s going to be interesting to see which emerges as the leading player over the next 12 months or so.
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