Eighteen months after Dom Hoffman announced he would relaunch Vine, his new app, Byte, has finally launched as a closed beta.
The first 100 invites were sent hours ago, announcing the launch of Byte’s closed beta. The app will let users record or upload short, looped vertical videos to a reverse-chronological feed.
Twitter bought and then shut down Vine in January 2017. Ever since that day, Dom Hoffman, one of the original founders of the app, had pledged that he would come back with a new version of the app. First dubbed V2, Hoffman finally announced the new new app would be called Byte and would be launched in spring 2019.
just sent out 100 byte beta invites for our first closed test, which starts tomorrow. will expand to more testers soon
— byte (@byte_app) April 22, 2019
Of course, things have changed since the days when Vine was one of the most popular social apps. The rise and current massive popularity of TikTok will be a challenge for the new comer. But Hoffman believes Byte may appeal to an older audience, especially those who will look back at their best Vine days with nostalgia.
the byte beta we’ve been running with friends and family *feels* exactly like the vine friends and family beta, down to the weird but appealing randomness of the videos. that’ll change as we expand, but it’s a pretty good sign pic.twitter.com/rBbQrNtTJ7
— dom hofmann (@dhof) April 22, 2019
This time around, Hoffman says he plans to keep running beta tests, adding and removing features, to see what people would really be looking for in the app. For now the app only offers camera recordings and no uploads, and just a feed with Likes and comments without the ability to follow accounts. Based on the feedback, Hoffman and his team are already planning the next iteration which should include video uploads and user profiles.
Maybe it’s my age (and the fact that I absolutely loved Vine), but I am thrilled about this.
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