Twitter shocked the world when they announced that they are shutting down the much loved Vine, which they had bought only three years ago. In that relatively short period, it had a significant impact on the social media landscape thanks to the 6 seconds long content that was generated by its bubbling audience.
However, Twitter has been struggling for some time and it was deemed fit to sell the video sharing network. Interestingly, other parties have seen the value people have on Vine and we have seen the likes of Giphy trying to persuade people to store their Vines with them, or when Pornhub allegedly offered to buy the network.
Speaking of selling the network, it seems there are a whole lot of people who want to buy Vine. According to TechCrunch, Twitter is apparently considering term sheets from companies that want to purchase it. Apparently according to the New York Times, Vine costs like $10 million a month, and in a bid to cut costs, it was top of Twitter’s list to be be axed off. Ironically, Twitter was offered bids lower than $10 million for Vine, which coupled with its running costs looks like a significant loss.
There is a danger to sell Vine. As you know, Vines are shared across Facebook, Twitter and embedded in websites and if the buyer decides to mess with the database, there will be a lot of broken links all over the web. Twitter promised to maintain the gems that were posted over the time Vine was up and running and we will have to see what the company will do regarding this issue.
